And then, two years ago, Conservative MP Brad Butt apologized after NDP MP Carol Hughes reported that he had pointed a finger gun at his own head.

Earlier this month, a 10-year-old boy in the American state of Ohio was suspended for three days after pointing a finger gun at the head of a classmate and saying, “Boom.” That punishment might’ve been a bit much, but possibly it should not be so easy to compare the behaviour of parliamentarians to the goofing of 10-year-old boys.

We might thus hope to restrict the use of finger guns to good natured attempts to seem cool or charming.

So Peter Kent and Vic Toews are out and Michelle Rempel and Chris Alexander are in.

So what exactly?

Will this new cabinet now commence cooperating with the Parliamentary Budget Officer? Will there now be a full and complete explanation of the cuts the government is making to return the budget to balance? Will it acknowledge that allowing Peter Van Loan’s chief of staff to participate in the selection of the next budget officer was not the best idea? Will we never again hear about the NDP’s “carbon tax?” Will this new cabinet suggest to the Prime Minister that he explain now what he has done over the last two months to ascertain the details of the arrangement between Nigel Wright and Mike Duffy? Will it instruct Statistics Canada to reinstate the long-form census? Will there be new restrictions on the use of public advertising? Will Brent Rathgeber and Mark Warawa receive apologies? Will there be less frequent uses of time allocation? Will so much of the time reserved each day for statements by members be something other than a rote recital of partisan inanities?

Probably not any of that, but there are now “new faces” and soon there will be a “new agenda.” The shuffle was about “generational change.” The faces of Mr. Alexander and Ms. Rempel, bright-faced and blonde, played appealingly on the television and the new minister of immigration and the new minister of state for Western economic development also seem to have been posed directly over the Prime Minister’s left shoulder in the official family photo at Rideau. So at least this shuffle had a theme—the weirdly anatomical “New faces, experienced hands”—and there were nice pictures to go along with the story.

What else?

Leona Aglukkaq inherits the carbon tax farce from Mr. Kent, which at least makes it more difficult for the NDP’s Megan Leslie to ever again accuse this government of putting two grumpy old men in charge of its resource policy. (Joe Oliver remains to continue shaking his fist at environmentalists and yelling at them to get off the national lawn so that he can run a pipeline through it.) And maybe Ms. Aglukkaq will be the lucky environment minister who gets to finally impose regulations on the oil and gas sector.

Peter MacKay’s move to justice at least puts some distance between the procurement of a new jet fighter and Mr. MacKay’s record of saying silly things about that procurement. (And Rob Nicholson’s move to defence at least allows for a relatively easy transition from complaining about the opposition’s lack of support for getting tough on criminals to complaining about the opposition’s lack of support for supporting the troops.) The decision to forgo appointing a new intergovernmental affairs minister might acknowledge that the portfolio had fallen into disuse (or it could be that the Prime Minister didn’t want to set a new record with a cabinet numbering 40).

The decision to put Pierre Poilievre in charge of democratic reform feels like the Prime Minister trolling liberals and parliamentary adherents, but it might simply provide official cover to his unofficial assignment of defending the government against accusations of political unfortunateness. At least now when he stands to dance in front of some charge on behalf of some other minister or Conservative MP, it’ll be because he has a vaguely applicable cabinet portfolio. And his relative youth conceivably gives him plenty of time to sit around waiting for the Senate to be reformed. Mr. Poilievre is a fascinating case. And he now has nominal responsibility for our longest-standing parliamentary dilemma. It is strangely fitting that it should come to this. (And that the young man who once mocked the “in-and-out” charges of violating election spending limits will now presumably be the minister who introduces the government’s electoral reform legislation adds a helpful bit of irony to the storyline.)

With EI reform, pensions, youth unemployment and various other concerns to answer for, Diane Finley was often the most active participant in QP over the past year and so now it would seem that there will be a lot more from Jason Kenney in the fall in the rechristened ministry of “Employment and Social Development.” And it will be his responsibility to justify all that government advertising for a job grant that doesn’t yet exist. And if Justin Trudeau’s concerns for the middle class align with Mr. Kenney’s new responsibilities, this might put the two on something of a collision course. Or, put another way, it might provide an official ring for the fight Mr. Kenney has seemed eager to have with Mr. Trudeau.

Conservative backbenchers had reportedly wanted to see both Peter Van Loan and Gordon O’Connor moved and while John Duncan is now the government whip, the suspendered Mr. Van Loan remains in the spot where he has become a defining character of this era in the history of our parliamentary democracy. We shall see whether Mr. O’Connor’s exit and Mr. Duncan’s genial manner is enough to satisfy the disgruntled and whether the Backbench Spring is to extend into the fall.

And the whole thing was announced on Twitter. Take that, Mr. Trudeau. Rumour has it that the Throne Speech will be relayed as a series of cat gifs.

The average age of this group is apparently somewhat lower than the average age of its predecessor. The future of the Conservative party is somewhere in this group and the new faces will hopefully have some new ideas, or at least some new ideas to convey. The basic mould of the Harper government likely set several years ago, but the future is always full of possibility. And maybe the mould is still basically sturdy and useful.

]]>These days, the Secretary of Homeland Security is arguably the most important cabinet position these days for the Canada-US relationship. After 9/11, many issues relating to the border and relationship with Canada that once had previously been run out of economic and trade-focused departments where put in the hands of DHS, a mega-department created in 2002, whose mandate was security and whose personnel came from law enforcement, not economic, backgrounds. This transformation added to the “security trumps trade” pressures of the post-9/11 years and, in some ways, the two countries are still adapting to the consequences. The standing-up of the Department of Public Safety in 2003 allowed for the creation of a DH counterpart in Canada to deal with issues of border management, information exchanges, and other nuts-and-bolts issues that undergird the massive economic relationship between the two countries.

Today Janet Napolitano, who ran DHS since the beginning of the Obama administration, announced she is stepping down. She will leave in September to run the University of California. Along with the recently announced resignation of Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, this leaves a question mark over one of the most important working relationships between Ottawa and Washington.

Though Napolitano had a rough start in her first Canadian interview, the Beyond the Border agreements to facilitate border crossings had made progress during her tenure. Napolitano and Toews were reputed to have a particularly good personal rapport. Both were former prosecutors with a similar world view. They met at the Vancouver Olympics and attended a curling match. At a later meeting, Toews took the opportunity to teach the former Arizona governor how to curl.

Today, I am announcing my resignation as Member of Parliament for Provencher, Minister of Public Safety, and Regional Minister for Manitoba, effective tomorrow, Tuesday, July 9th.

It has been an honour to represent the people of Provencher for the past 12 and-a-half years in the House of Commons. I would like to express my gratitude to my constituents for placing their trust in me. It is a responsibility I took very seriously and a privilege I will never forget.

I would like to thank Prime Minister Stephen Harper for giving me the opportunity to serve in his Cabinet as the Regional Minister for Manitoba since 2006 and, concurrently, in turn, as the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, the President of the Treasury Board, and as Minister of Public Safety. Our Prime Minister is a man of great character and integrity. His leadership has seen our country through very difficult economic times. Canada is recognized as a global leader and is the envy of nations around the world. I know that Canadians will continue to benefit from this government’s ongoing work.

I would also like to thank all of my parliamentary colleagues for their friendship and support. Specifically, I would like to thank the members of the Manitoba Federal Conservative Caucus. I could not be more proud of you and the work you do on behalf of our Province.

I would not have been able to do my job if not for the competent and talented staff members who worked beside me over the years. Thank you to all of my staff in my riding offices, my regional office in Winnipeg and to my political and departmental staff in Ottawa. You have always been extremely dedicated and hard working. You have had a very positive impact on my life and for that I will always be grateful.

The lifeblood of any political organization is its volunteers. Over the years I have met many volunteers who have worked hard on my campaigns and in many other capacities between elections. You have made all the difference. Thank you for your tireless efforts and enthusiasm.

I would like to thank my spouse Stacey, my children and my extended family and friends for their patience and understanding. There are tremendous sacrifices made by family members so that elected officials can serve in public office. It is not an easy life for family and words alone cannot describe my gratitude for your unyielding support.

When I entered federal politics in 2000, I did so with the intention of making a positive contribution to Canada by being a part of the movement to unite conservatives across the country. Looking back, I believe I accomplished what I did because of my desire to work with other like-minded people. Teamwork is the best way for individual Members of Parliament to accomplish the long-term goals of their constituents.

I leave public office at a time when I believe our country is more sensitive to the needs of victims, more fiscally sound and safer for citizens and future generations of Canadians.

I am proud of the achievements of our government over the last seven years. In addition to the numerous steps we have taken to rebalance the criminal justice system to ensure that criminals are held accountable to individual victims and Canadian society as a whole, we were able to renew Canada’s physical infrastructure. My home province of Manitoba received support for hundreds of important projects, including funds for the completion of the Red River Floodway Expansion Project.

During my time as Minister of Public Safety, I was honoured to support the Prime Minister in the negotiation and implementation of the Beyond the Border Action Plan. I was also particularly proud that our government created Canada’s first Counter-Terrorism and Cyber-Security strategies, implemented a Human Trafficking Action Plan, and began a discussion with all levels of government on the economics of policing in Canada. These accomplishments are just some of the ways our government has made Canada a stronger, safer and more prosperous country.

It takes a great deal of deliberation on the part of those who decide to enter politics. It takes an even greater amount of consideration and effort to step out of office when one still enjoys the support of those who elected them. However, for me, the time has come to step aside and begin the next chapter of my life.

I am leaving public life in order to focus on my family and to pursue opportunities in the private sector. I leave with a store of many wonderful memories, lifelong friendships and a sense of having accomplished many of the things I set out to do when I first began my political journey.

To all who made this possible, thank you.

Following the announcements of Diane Ablonczy, Ted Menzies and Keith Ashfield and the resignation of Peter Penashue, Mr. Toews’ exit would leave five open cabinet seats. If Peter Kent is also out, half a dozen spots are open.

]]>STEINBACH, Man. – Federal Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has announced he is resigning as MP for the Manitoba riding of Provencher.

Toews told Steinbach radio station CHSM his retirement is effective Tuesday.

He says he will be pursuing opportunities in the private sector.

“I am having discussions with various companies and individuals,” he told the Manitoba radio station. “This summer I will be working somewhat, but will be taking a little time off and enjoying some of the beautiful life we have here in Manitoba.”

Toews, 60, was first elected to the house of Commons in 2000 and was re-elected four times. In the last federal election in 2011, the Conservative won just over 70 per cent of votes in the riding.

He was minister of justice before he was appointed to the public safety portfolio. He was also named president of the Treasury Board in 2007 and again in October 2008.

“I’ve been in politics for a long time,” he said. “One of the commitments I made to my spouse by the time my young son goes to school, I will have left politics. He is entering Grade 1 this year and I think it is time to go.

“We have had a wonderful time in terms of serving the people of Provencher. I can’t think of a better job.”

Toews has served as Stephen Harper’s regional minister in Manitoba and in a news release he thanked the prime minister for “for giving me the opportunity to serve in his cabinet.”

He said he leaves public office “at a time when I believe our country is more sensitive to the needs of victims, more fiscally sound and safer for citizens and future generations of Canadians.”

]]>The Conservative MP for Calgary-Nose Hill and the minister of state for foreign affairs announces she won’t seek re-election.

“However, we are in a period of transition. There will be a significant riding redistribution prior to the next election in 2015, and because of tremendous growth in northwest Calgary there will be drastic changes to Calgary-Nose Hill. A major part of my current riding will become the new Calgary-Rocky Ridge. This has led many to ask whether I will seek another term in office, and if so, in which riding.

“As I am fully engaged in my responsibilities, I had not intended to publicly share my decision until a year from now. However, since some of my colleagues have recently announced that they will not seek re-election in 2015 the questions are becoming more insistent. That puts me, my family and my staff in an uncomfortable position. I therefore think that, especially since others beside myself are affected, this is the appropriate time to announce that after serving twenty-two years I will be leaving the political arena in 2015.

As well, Senator Marjory LeBreton says she intends to step down as leader of the government in the Senate.

“After almost seven and a half years, I have advised the Prime Minister of my intention to step down as Leader of the Government in the Senate.

I would like to personally thank Prime Minister Harper for giving me the opportunity of a lifetime to serve in his government and to be part of so many initiatives undertaken by our government on behalf of our fellow citizens, whether it be economic growth and stability, safer communities or courageous and principled foreign policy. Most of all, I want to thank him for his trust, his strong leadership and his friendship.

While I will be leaving the position of Government Leader in the Senate, I will continue to be an active member of the Conservative Caucus over the next few years. I intend to step up my efforts in support of meaningful Senate reform and also actively back the new strengthened rules we introduced regarding Senate expenses.”

Ms. Ablonczy excusing herself leaves the potential for four openings with Ted Menzies and Keith Ashfield having previously excused themselves and the voters in Labrador having excused Peter Penashue. If Vic Toews chooses to retire, there would be five open spots.

Senator LeBreton was also a member of cabinet, but will obviously be replaced by another senator.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/au-revoir-eventually-diane-ablonczy/feed/26Goodbye Vic Toews?http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/goodbye-vic-toews/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/goodbye-vic-toews/#commentsWed, 26 Jun 2013 15:55:43 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=399949'Mr. Speaker, I will not get into those kinds of cheap shots that the member does'

If Mr. Toews’ federal political career is soon to end, his last exchange with the opposition will be this one from June 10.

Randall Garrison. Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives have misplaced priorities when it comes to RCMP reform as well. Last week the minister refused to distance himself from Commissioner Paulson’s inappropriate comments about sexual harassment in the force. Now the minister is flatly rejecting the idea of civilian governance for the RCMP. This was a key recommendation of the Brown task force for improving RCMP accountability. Why does the minister insist on undermining rather than rebuilding public trust in the RCMP?

Vic Toews. Mr. Speaker, our government has taken strong action to restore pride in Canada’s national police force. Harassment in the RCMP, especially harassment of a sexual nature, is a problem. The commissioner, like all Canadians, finds it totally unacceptable and our government agrees. What I do not understand is that when we had the debate to see what legislation was needed by the RCMP, who stood up to vote against it? That member and his party.

Rosane Doré Lefebvre. Mr. Speaker, the minister is once again showing that he is living beyond his means, intellectually speaking. He knows full well that Bill C-42 does not go far enough. The RCMP needs a change in culture, from the bottom straight up to the top. The band-aid solutions proposed by the minister are not enough to restore the public trust. Why are the Conservatives opposing the idea that the commissioner no longer be accountable to the minister? Why categorically oppose the principle of civil governance at the RCMP?

Vic Toews. Mr. Speaker, I will not get into those kinds of cheap shots that the member does. I may not have been blessed with the same intelligence she has, but I try to make up for it with hard work. I try to work with my colleagues in the House. We have brought good legislation forward that would transform the RCMP. Unfortunately, that member and her party have consistently stood in the way of meaningful reform for the RCMP.

Given the statement for which Mr. Toews is most recently famous for, this bit about not getting into “those kinds of cheap shots” is possibly the funniest thing Mr. Toews has ever said. Indeed, his last two statements in the House—see here and here—would be responses to lobbed questions that allowed the minister to accuse Charlie Angus of sexism (for a reference to a Beatles song) and fret that Thomas Mulcair could have endangered children (when the NDP leader had his “misunderstanding” with Hill security).

Nonetheless, Mr. Toews would at the very least leave us with a valuable lesson about the limits of denigrating one’s opponents—or at least the risk that in doing so, one might undermine own’s own cause. As Mr. Toews admonished the NDP’s Francoise Boivin 16 months ago: “Mr. Speaker, the member, by trying to over-emphasize her point, discredits herself.”

]]>Yesterday, in response to a very serious question from Conservative MP Lawrence Toet about Thomas Mulcair’s driving, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews very seriously fretted about the very serious ramifications of irresponsible driving on Parliament Hill.

Thousands of tourists, including many children, pass through Parliament Hill every week. Last week, the conduct of the NDP leader could have put them at risk.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/wont-somebody-think-of-the-children-2/feed/2In our hour of need, Justin Trudeau promises us betterhttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/in-our-hour-of-need-justin-trudeau-promises-us-better/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/in-our-hour-of-need-justin-trudeau-promises-us-better/#commentsMon, 17 Jun 2013 23:07:12 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=396312In the absence of an agenda, there are only various scandals to wonder about

]]>Before Justin Trudeau had uttered a word, Heritage Minister James Moore had used his fifth response to the New Democrats to scold the Liberal leader and then, in response to Mr. Trudeau’s first question, Mr. Moore had pronounced further shame on him and so now Mr. Trudeau attempted a rallying cry.

“Mr. Speaker,” the Liberal leader declared, “while they break the rules any chance they can get, we do not just follow the rules, we raise the bar.”

Most everyone laughed. The Conservatives and New Democrats howled. NDP House leader Nathan Cullen and Conservative MP Michelle Rempel exchanged pantomimes of weightlifters raising the bar above their heads. Pierre Poilievre made the motion for raising the roof.

The Speaker was compelled to call for order. When the floor was returned to him, Mr. Trudeau put his question and Mr. Moore dismissed it and then the Heritage Minister heaped more scorn on Mr. Trudeau’s speaking fees.

Mr. Trudeau’s grand declaration did sound a bit silly. It surely was a bit silly.

But the sentiment was all right.

These are the final days of the spring session and surely everyone here would rather be elsewhere. There is little left to do and even less to say. And in the absence of an agenda to argue about, there are only various scandals to wonder about and trivialities to chase in the interests of distracting from those scandals.

Without any actual reforms to propose, Tim Uppal, the minister of state for democratic reform, used his time to raise allegations of wrongdoing on the New Democrats. Challenging limits of the Speaker’s unwillingness to impose standards on this place and the extent to which viewers are willing to have their intelligence insulted, Conservative MP Blaine Calkins and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson used a scripted exchange on the Not Criminally Responsible Reform Act to criticize Mr. Trudeau’s public speaking. Conservative backbencher Lawrence Toet and Public Safety Minister Vic Toews then performed a similar routine on the subject of Thomas Mulcair’s driving. In response to a question from Liberal MP Ralph Goodale about Nigel Wright, Mike Duffy, Bruce Carson, Arthur Porter, Saulie Zajdel, Peter Penashue and Patrick Brazeau, James Moore cited Mac Harb and, again, Mr. Trudeau.

When it was over the earth did not open wide and swallow this place whole, but surely no one would’ve minded if it had.

It was Mr. Trudeau who, in February, disclosed his appearances and earnings. It was someone from the Grace Foundation who wrote, in March, to lament that their fundraiser had gone poorly. It was the Harper government that, last week, complained loudly about this situation. And it was Mr. Trudeau who, two days after seeming to dismiss the matter, announced that he would make amends.

It might be possible to make a reasonable argument that Mr. Trudeau has done nothing wrong—the same ethics commissioner to whom the Harper government deferred on the matter of Nigel Wright’s cheque seems to have cleared Mr. Trudeau to make the speeches he made between 2008 and 2012. And it might not matter much two years hence—surely Mr. Trudeau would be forgiven were he to look at recent history and conclude that elections could be won despite questions about the ethics of one’s actions.

But this is now for Mr. Trudeau to explain. He made those speeches, he accepted those fees and it thus for him to justify. This afternoon, awhile after Question Period he had concluded, he walked out into the foyer and stood in front of the cameras and took something like 20 questions. Again, he did not contain himself.

“I will talk with them about anything that they want to do. I am open,” he said of the groups he is promising to reach out to.

And then, in the next breath, another declaration.

“What I am demonstrating here is a level of openness, transparency, accountability that has never been seen before on this Parliament,” he ventured. “But this is the kind of standard that I know Canadians want to be able to expect from their public servants. It’s not—from the people who serve in this Parliament, it’s not enough to simply follow the rules or follow the ethics code or even follow the law because we have a government right now that has broken repeatedly all three of those. I am willing to go above and beyond to try and restore Canadians’ faith in a place that has betrayed them too many times.”

Was this silly too? Probably at least a little. Mr. Trudeau is not quite in possession of gravitas. He has not yet done enough to earn it. It was surely not necessary to declare his actions unprecedented. A man should not be proclaiming his own greatness (unless that man is Kanye West). And the politician chased by questions of poor judgment is not well positioned to proclaim the righteousness of his response.

A few more questions and then he was back into the meaning of it all.

“I’ve been very, very clear throughout that I’ve followed all the rules and all the Code of Ethics and all the laws involved but I also am aware that I am running to be prime minister,” he said. “And right now we have a Prime Minister that has demonstrated such a lack of judgment, a lack of openness, transparency, accountability that Canadians have become incredibly cynical about all of us who choose to serve in this place. And I realize that I have an opportunity here to demonstrate that Canadians can expect and deserve a better level of behaviour from people in this place who hope to wield the public trust one day.”

There are so many asterisks to apply to the political promise of Justin Trudeau. He is not yet a commanding performer in the House. He is untested as a political leader. He has said some things he shouldn’t have. He does not have a record of accomplishment. He does not yet have a platform. His poll numbers have the feel of a housing bubble. He has not proven attack ads wrong. An election is still two years away. He is opposite two formidable opponents, each with more experience at this stuff and more MPs in their caucuses. And at the start of the next election, there will be at least 303 ridings without a Liberal incumbent.

“Mr. Speaker, Canadians’ confidence in our public office-holders has been shaken by the opening of a criminal investigation into the Prime Minister’s own office,” Mr. Trudeau had declared with his first question this afternoon. “By raising the bar on openness and transparency, we can begin to restore confidence in our public institutions. Will the government choose transparency over secrecy? Will it publicly release a copy of the $90,000 cheque written by the Prime Minister’s chief of staff to Mike Duffy?”

Mr. Moore had scoffed. “Mr. Speaker,” the minister said, “somebody really should advise the Liberal leader not to lead with his chin in Question Period.”

Indeed, Mr. Trudeau’s declarations this day might’ve been a bit much, might’ve seemed a bit rich. His rivals might’ve laughed and mocked. He might not have proven anything. He might’ve invited only eye rolls.

But maybe still, in this particular moment, Mr. Trudeau has the right idea.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/in-our-hour-of-need-justin-trudeau-promises-us-better/feed/114That time a former separatist and Liberal joined the Parole Boardhttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/that-time-a-former-separatist-and-liberal-joined-the-parole-board/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/that-time-a-former-separatist-and-liberal-joined-the-parole-board/#commentsFri, 14 Jun 2013 19:22:37 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=395204Do you remember the voice of Richard Bélisle echoing through the halls of parliament? That name will only sound familiar if you watched the House of Commons from 1993 until…

]]>Do you remember the voice of Richard Bélisle echoing through the halls of parliament? That name will only sound familiar if you watched the House of Commons from 1993 until 1997, when Bélisle was victorious in La Prairie, Que. He lost a 1997 re-election bid, and never returned to the House of Commons. It wasn’t for lack of effort. Bélisle ran again in 2000, 2004, and 2011, and even ran provincially in Quebec in 2008. Soon after his 2011 loss, Bélisle was appointed a part-time member of the Parole Board of Canada. Today, he was appointed a full-time member.

Without any further context, you might assume Bélisle was a Conservative candidate for all those years, and this is your average patronage appointment. That’s mostly true, but not entirely. He was elected under the Bloc Quebecois banner in 1993, beating future Liberal cabinet minister Jacques Saada by 476 votes. He managed to rack up 39 per cent of the vote in 1997, but lost to Liberal Yolande Thibault by 978 votes in the riding of Saint-Lambert.

Following that, Bélisle switched parties and joined the Canadian Alliance. Under that banner, he lost a bid in 2000 in Brossard-La Prairie, where Saada gained his revenge. Bélisle managed only 5.8 per cent of the vote, good enough for third place. In 2004, under the new Conservative banner, he finished in fourth in Longueuil-Pierre-Boucher—racking up just 4.9 per cent of the vote.

Bélisle went provincial in 2008, running for the Quebec Liberals in Taillon. He convinced a respectable 33 per cent of voters to choose his candidacy, but lost to Parti Quebecois MNA Marie Malavoy.

The final chapter in Bélisle’s electoral career came in 2011, when he ran again federally in Longueuil-Pierre-Boucher. He finished fourth, behind eventual winner and NDP MP Pierre Nantel. In December 2011, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews appointed him a part-time member of the parole board.

]]>Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, asked on the West Block yesterday why the RCMP’s senior officers can’t meet with opposition MPs without first notifying his office.

Tom Clark: I want to ask you something about the RCMP because there’s been this e-mail circulating around the last few days from the commissioner of the RCMP instructing his senior members, his senior brass not to accept meetings or luncheons with parliamentarians or with senators until it is cleared by your office. Is that true?

Vic Toews: I don’t clear as the appropriate[ness] of any interview. Interviews are done all the time with the RCMP without them clearing it but there is a communications protocol that does take place between the RCMP and my office, absolutely. I’m responsible for the RCMP. I need to know exactly what the RCMP is doing and saying because if I go into the House of Commons and I have no idea what is being said, I’m at a distinct situation where it appears that I’m not carrying out my responsibilities to the House of Commons. So the communication discussions that go on between us, I think are quite normal and certainly were in effect under the prior Liberal government as I recall.

Tom Clark: So any MP, and I guess that would include Conservatives MPs cannot meet with senior members of the RCMP without a clearance from your office, that’s what you’re saying?

Vic Toews: Well they don’t clear it with my office but essentially what happens, especially if it’s MPs from my party, they’ll come to me and say, look I want to talk to the RCMP and I’ll refer them to an individual and that’s the end of it. I don’t see any more of that. But the RCMP clearly has to communicate as an entity, especially on issues of national and public security.

It’s actually not quite clear from these responses what the “protocol” is, but it seems at least one lunch has been cancelled after the minister’s office was not first notified.

When this was raised in the House on Friday, Candice Bergen, Mr. Toews’ parliamentary secretary offered that, “If parliamentarians need to, or want to, meet with RCMP or other officials, the appropriate place for them to do that is in parliamentary committees.”

Update 1:52pm. In the interests of clarity, I asked Mr. Toews’ office if senior RCMP officials had to notify the minister before meeting with opposition MPs. Here is the response.

The Commissioner of the RCMP will meet whom he chooses, when he chooses. It is also appropriate that he approve meetings of his staff. The appropriate place for Parliamentarians to interact with officials, RCMP or otherwise, is at Parliamentary Committees. If a Member of Parliament has concerns relating to the RCMP, we would encourage them to bring those to the Minister. However, none of this impacts the ability of any Member to speak with their local RCMP on law enforcement or other local matters.

So why are we suddenly exercised at the idea of camera crews following CBSA officers as they raid construction sites in search of illegal immigrants? Because the suspects might be innocent? Because their alleged transgression doesn’t rise to the level of—I dunno—a guy who tries to play fast and loose with a Money Mart?

The real problem, to my thinking, is how infrequently we get to watch the enforcement arms of the state in action without those agencies filtering the message—and the dust-up over the CBSA deal illustrates the point. To get past the blue-sky planning stage, Force Four Entertainment, the production company behind the project, had to sign an agreement allowing the feds to vet the show to ensure they won’t portray the border agency in a negative light. Which means the finished product is bound to be a whole lot different than if, say, a crew from the fifth estate went along for the raids.

These bargains for access are increasingly common in TV production, and they speak to a growing tendency within law enforcement to co-operate with media only for purposes of self-promotion. To Serve and Protect set the template: it’s the Canadian knockoff of an American show tailored to aggrandize cops. In short, we get one side of the story.

So before we declare immigration raids off limits to the media, let’s remember the public interest underlying the CBSA’s mission—quaint as that might sound. I, for one, would watch a program that juxtaposed the harsh realities of enforcement work against the human plight of Honduran migrants eking out a life in Canada’s underground economy. I doubt I’m going to get that from the production. So if the Minister of Public Safety wants to do me a favour, he’ll swing open the door to more on-scene coverage of border enforcement teams in action, by a wider variety of media, with a lot less stage management. We might see the flaws and excesses of our duly empowered authorities. We might even see their virtues.

All within the bounds of the law, of course: the potential for children to be among those being filmed is troubling (it’s not like they choose to migrate, legally or illegally). So one expects the same careful editing and pixelating on the part of Force Four we get from To Serve and Protect, where minors are conspicuously absent. A spokeswoman for Force Four says its shows will be vetted by lawyers to ensure privacy rights are not violated.

I know: dream on. Nothing about the deal Vic Toews signed off on suggests an interest in public enlightenment. It’s just a bit of politics—some theatre-of-the-living to fill the air on National Geographic channel, whose venerable brand belies the increasing hollowness of its content.

The scandal is not that we’ll see the CBSA raids on such limited terms. It’s that this is the only way we get to see them.

]]>Peter O’Neil reports that the cost to the CBSA of assisting in the production of Border Security is so far unknown.

But the 2011 memo and attached agreement between the CBSA and Force Four Productions also spelled out the operational costs to taxpayers in terms of the role government officials would play. The CBSA would “enjoy de facto executive production” authority, identify “scenarios, sites and storylines,” as well as oversee and control all film shoots.

“This (financial) burden is not insignificant,” CBSA president Luc Portelance said in the proposal that was released through the Access to Information Act. The memo also noted that the Force Four Entertainment pitch to the CBSA was reviewed by an official in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office before getting final approval from Toews.

I asked Mr. Toews’ office for the cost and the CBSA responded as follows.

The documentary show follows the regular day-to-day duties of CBSA employees at the land border, airports, mail centres and inland. The time and effort that CBSA has put forth in support of this production is very worthwhile when we see the value of reaching and educating millions of viewers. Our participating officers are doing their jobs, and the production takes place at no extra costs to our front line operations.

]]>The NDP’s Randall Garrison stood and declared the country to be taken aback.

“Canadians across the country are shocked that he personally approved filming immigration raids for reality TV,” Mr. Garrison reported, referring to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews. “This is not some episode of Cops. These are real people and real officers doing a dangerous job. Filming is exploitative and can put individuals in danger.”

The producers of Border Security might rather Mr. Garrison describe their show as “a dynamic documentary series that offers viewers a front row seat to high stakes, bizarre reveals, and comical conflicts that are part of everyday life for border security officers,” but “real people and real officers doing a dangerous job” might easily be clipped for the next promotional poster.

“How could the minister be so reckless?” Mr. Garrison wondered. “Will he take responsibility and put an immediate end to this dangerous and offensive PR stunt?”

“Mr. Speaker, the show is about the situation faced daily by our front-line border officers. The privacy of individuals is protected at all times,” he read from a blue piece of paper. “However, it is important to remember that illegal immigrants cost law-abiding Canadian taxpayers millions of dollars each year and thousands of jobs. We expect the CBSA to enforce Canada’s immigration laws by removing individuals who take advantage of Canada’s generous immigration system by jumping the queue.”

And so if illegal immigrants are to steal our jobs and waste our money, they should at least be willing to provide us with some form of escapist and informative entertainment in the process.

Indeed, perhaps rather than condemn this program, we should recognize the possibilities it raises for further reality shows about the inner workings of the federal government and how exciting all sorts of things might seem when set to rock music. Imagine Defence Procurement: The quest to figure out how many billions more this new thing is going to end up costing or G8 Legacy: One’s man attempt to visit every gazebo, bike rack and public washroom that was paid for by the Border Infrastructure Fund or Omnibus: An intimate look at the life of the bureaucrat whose job it was to proofread all 753 clauses of C-38 or Price-on-Carbon Preppers: Joe Oliver and Peter Kent prepare you for the apocalypse. A whole network might be maintained, with game shows like Find the Budget Cut and Who Wants To Be Intergovernmental Affairs Minister?(something like The Bachelor), documentaries like Kevin Page: History’s Greatest Monster and a nightly backbencher-hosted newscast entitled Talking Points. The prestige centrepiece of the network would be a big-budget fantasy drama entitled Senate Reform.

“The minister has no consideration for those people who, for reasons that are unknown, decided to put their lives in danger to flee their country,” lamented Rosane Doré Lefebvre. “He should think a bit before turning this into a reality show.”

That is surely one way of looking at it. Another is to embrace Border Security as perhaps currently the most transparent thing about the federal government.

“Mr. Speaker, the show is about the situation faced daily by our front-line border officers. The privacy of individuals is protected at all times,” Mr. Toews repeated. “It is important to remember that illegal immigrants cost law-abiding Canadian taxpayers millions of dollars each year and thousands of jobs. We expect the CBSA to enforce Canada’s immigration laws by removing individuals who take advantage of Canada’s generous immigration system by jumping the queue.”

Alexandrine Latendresse, the diminutive New Democrat, was unimpressed. “Mr. Speaker, for the cameras, no substance!” she shot back. “For them, human dramas are a good opportunity to make a television show. Bravo!”

Awhile later, it was Liberal Kevin Lamoureux fussing about the program. Once more, Mr. Toews returned to his feet to read his remarks. “Mr. Speaker, the show is about the situations faced daily by our front line border officers. The privacy of individuals is respected at all times. It is important to remember that illegal immigrants cost law-abiding Canadian taxpayers tens of millions of dollars each year and they cost the member’s constituents, our constituents, thousands of jobs. We expect the CBSA to enforce Canada’s immigration laws by removing individuals who take advantage of Canada’s generous immigration system by jumping the queue.”

Whatever his interest in reality television, this much from Mr. Toews was rather scripted. He will likely have to be a bit more interesting if he hopes to make it into the next episode of Border Security.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-commons-vic-toews-real-world/feed/32‘Canadians are angered and in a state of shock over the actions of the NDP leader’http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/canadians-are-angered-and-in-a-state-of-shock-over-the-actions-of-the-ndp-leader/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/canadians-are-angered-and-in-a-state-of-shock-over-the-actions-of-the-ndp-leader/#commentsMon, 18 Mar 2013 20:40:28 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=361688The Conservatives attack Thomas Mulcair's meeting with Gary Freeman

]]>Shortly before QP, the government sent up Roxanne James to report the following.

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are angered and in a state of shock over the actions of the NDP leader. This past weekend the leader of the NDP met with convicted cop shooter Gary Freeman, a man who was convicted of attempted murder in the U.S. after repeatedly shooting a young Chicago police officer, Terrence Knox, who was left permanently paralyzed and suffering from the effects of the shooting until his recent death. Rather than face due justice, Gary Freeman evaded the law for several years by fleeing to Canada and living here illegally under a false name. This is the man who the Leader of the Opposition chose to meet with. Sadly, it is telling that the NDP leader has never met with the family of the victim. Instead, he went on national television yesterday to shamefully dismiss the repeated shooting as a mere scuffle. Canadians are getting fed up seeing the NDP stand up for the rights of criminals over the rights of victims and their families time and time again.

Mr. Speaker, after bashing Canada’s natural resource sector and Canadian jobs while in Washington, the Leader of the Opposition made it a priority to visit with convicted cop shooter, Gary Freeman. The Leader of the Opposition continues to defend this admitted and convicted felon, and pressed for him to be allowed to come on up and live in Canada, despite the fact that Gary Freeman is a citizen of the United States and was never a citizen or lawful resident of Canada. Can the Minister of Public Safety tell the House whether our Conservative government supports this reckless and dangerous idea?

Vic Toews duly stood and responded.

Mr. Speaker, it is truly shameful that when the Leader of the Opposition goes abroad his priority is importing violent criminals into Canada. Mr. Freeman shot a front-line Chicago police officer, not once, not twice but three times, leaving that officer permanently paralyzed. These kinds of foreign nationals, convicted of dangerous and violent crimes, are not admissible to Canada. Reckless policies on immigration, like opposing the faster removal of foreign criminals bill and advocating for those who shoot brave front-line peace—

Ms. James errs in her report. Gary Freeman was not “convicted of attempted murder,” he pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated battery. The rest of Mr. Freeman’s story is reviewed here.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/canadians-are-angered-and-in-a-state-of-shock-over-the-actions-of-the-ndp-leader/feed/48The state of government communications in three actshttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-state-of-government-communications-in-three-acts/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-state-of-government-communications-in-three-acts/#commentsMon, 18 Mar 2013 12:00:55 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=361361Behold the new era of open government

]]>Canadian Press. Internal documents show the prime minister’s department micro-managed a media event staged by Parks Canada, trying to erase the venerable agency from a public announcement while promoting the Harper government.

Postmedia. Federal librarians and archivists who set foot in classrooms, attend conferences or speak up at public meetings on their own time are engaging in “high risk” activities, according to the new code of conduct at Library and Archives Canada. Given the dangers, the code says the department’s staff must clear such “personal” activities with their managers in advance to ensure there are no conflicts or “other risks to LAC.” The code, which stresses federal employees’ “duty of loyalty” to the “duly elected government,” also spells out how offenders can be reported.

CBC. Approval for a reality show production crew to film an immigration raid at a Vancouver construction site came directly from the federal government, documents obtained by a Vancouver woman show.

]]>Here is a fascinating moment for politics, public policy and humanity.

Thomas Mulcair wanted to lay down a marker, to publicly dine with Gary Freeman as a show of support for the African-American vilified as a cop killer and barred from Canada because of links to the radical Black Panther party – an accusation he flatly denies. So the New Democratic Party Leader brushed aside aides’ warnings not to risk meeting with a felon. On his first visit as Opposition Leader to Washington, D.C., Mr. Mulcair said he had principles to act on, not just messages to deliver.

And he wanted it witnessed. So in the din of the gaudily ostentatious lobby of the hulking Renaissance Hotel on Monday, Mr. Mulcair and Mr. Freeman met and talked candidly about race and victimization and justice and whether Canada is still the refuge it was when the young black man who shot a policeman in Chicago fled there more than four decades ago. Mr. Mulcair invited a Globe and Mail correspondent to join the group on condition that the details of the meeting not be disclosed until after his three-day visit.

JasonKenney and Vic Toews promptly, and predictably, tweeted their displeasure. (Perhaps Mr. Toews would have been more sympathetic if the meeting had been part of an upcoming episode of Border Patrol.)

Mr. Freeman’s situation is uniquely complicated.

Mr. Mulcair raised the case last May during a QP exchange about the return of Conrad Black. At the time, Mr. Kenney erroneously accused Mr. Freeman of being a “convicted police murderer” and then, in correcting himself, wrongly suggested that the police officer, Terrence Knox, had been blinded. He also repeated the claim that Mr. Freeman was a former member of the Black Panthers.

The full story is something like this.

In 1969, Mr. Freeman, then 19 years old and known as Joseph Pannell, was stopped by Terrence Knox, a 21-year-old police cadet, on Chicago’s South Side. Here is how the Toronto Star described Mr. Knox’s version of events in a 2005 piece.

In his victim-impact statement filed in Toronto court, Knox said on the afternoon of March 7, 1969, at the request of neighbourhood school officials anticipating violence, police officers had been asked to stop youths who looked of school age. One of them, he said, refused to be searched. While he was radioing an officer for help, Pannell shot him three times in the arm, Knox was reported as saying in news reports after the incident.

Jackman argued in her appeal that the violent incident in which Freeman shot a Chicago police officer happened in a vastly different time, when Freeman feared for his life. “There was a climate of fear among the black community in Chicago during the late 1960s because of continuing overt racism, serious abuse, and the murders of blacks by U.S. enforcement officers,” Jackman writes. “It is well documented. In fact, it proved to be so egregious that the U.S. faced international criticism as a result.”

“He maintains that the officers stopped him, punched him in the back of his head, pointed a gun at him, and threatened to shoot him,” Jackman continues in her appeal. “He was terrorized, fearing that he could be killed.”

Mr. Freeman subsequently jumped bail, but claims that was also motivated by fear.

Freeman said he jumped bail only after he says he was shot at — he doesn’t know by whom — and threatened by two white men in suits while awaiting trial.

He fled to Canada, settled in Montreal, got married, moved to Toronto, raised four children and worked as a librarian. American and Canadian authorities eventually discovered him and he was arrested in 2004. He fought extradition, but relented in 2008 and returned to Chicago to face trial. He pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated battery and was sentenced to 30 days in prison and two years’ probation. He has since been barred from re-entering Canada.

The federal government has claimed that an association with the Black Panthers is one reason he cannot be allowed to return, but it is not clear what evidence, if any, exists to support the suggestion that he was a member of the group. Three years ago, he applied for permission to attend the funeral of his father-in-law and an immigration report assessed his case thusly.

At the top of the report is: “Risks? N.” “It appears highly unlikely based on his recent track record that he would either reoffend or remain in Canada beyond the period authorized for his stay, given this would violate his probation order and would result in extradition and further prosecution,” immigration case officer Alex Chou wrote. “Sole grounds for inadmissibility are his conviction for aggravated battery. . . ”

So a man who lived peacefully and productively in Canada for three decades is not allowed to return because of his conviction for a shooting in 1969.

A few years ago, Mr. Freeman’s wife contacted Olivia Chow, the NDP’s immigration critic at the time, to seek assistance. Ms. Chow subsequently took up Mr. Freeman’s cause and brought the matter to Mr. Mulcair’s attention.

There is certainly a law and order case to be made against Mr. Freeman—whatever the circumstances, he has been convicted of committing a crime. But then there is surely a compassionate case to be made in his favour. He is both a convicted “cop shooter” (to use Mr. Toews’ description) and a man with a family who seems to have lived without offence for more than 30 years in our midst. So what of mercy? What about forgiveness? And how does keeping Mr. Freeman out of this country make the rest of us any safer? Is there some standard that must be applied here for the greater good of the nation? (It is cheap and and unfounded to claim, as Mr. Mulcair and Mr. Freeman have, that race is a factor, but the admission of Conrad Black might demonstrate some kind of contradiction. I presume the difference is the violent nature of Mr. Freeman’s crime.) Are we a better country without Mr. Freeman?

As a political act on Mr. Mulcair’s part, last week’s meeting was an interesting embrace of unnecessary risk. It would seem, on first glance, to violate all conventional wisdom of how to succeed at politics. He and his advisors surely knew—and, if not, Don Davies could explain it to them—that a public meeting with Mr. Freeman would almost definitely result in criticism from their primary political opponents. Even if Mr. Mulcair felt it necessary to meet with Mr. Freeman, he might have done it privately. It might have been done without any public acknowledgement from the NDP or explained after the fact with a sanitized sentence or two. Of course that wouldn’t have resulted in the sort of publicity that Mr. Freeman’s advocates likely think his case would benefit from. But it also wouldn’t have resulted in a picture of Mr. Mulcair and a convicted “cop shooter” being published in this country’s largest national newspaper.

(You might liken Mr. Mulcair’s support for Mr. Freeman to those politicians who have spoken up about Omar Khadr’s situation. But the latter has been a pressing and current political question. The former might’ve been ignored without anyone in the press gallery ever again asking about Mr. Mulcair’s position.)

Is there any obvious political upside? In Mr. Mulcair’s subsequent interview with CTV, he seemed to think he had a chance here to charge Mr. Kenney with hypocrisy. Perhaps that will register with some voters. Perhaps Mr. Mulcair is counting on a Conservative reaction that he thinks he can somehow use against them. Or perhaps Mr. Mulcair hopes to establish himself as a principled leader.

“There are values that guide you in what you do in your life and I will not allow Gary to be kept out of Canada without doing everything I can to get him back in. And you know what, sometimes digging in on something like that does cost you with a certain part of the electorate. Not everybody who’s around me was terribly pleased about the fact that I wanted to make sure that I met with Gary when I was down here because we have messages to deliver about the environment and climate change and the economy and the prospect of forming a government two years from now. But the guy who’s planning to form a government two years from now is the guy who’s talking to you now and I’m the guy who stood up for him three years ago when there was no question of me leading the official Opposition. But I’m the same guy and I’m motivated by the same values and I feel the same way.”

“Maybe people will get to see the belief and the passion and the values that have animated me throughout my political life. I’ve looked at this [case] as a lawyer. I’ve looked at this as an elected official. I’ve looked at this as a dad. I’ve seen a family that’s been torn asunder. Knowing I was coming to Washington, I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to put [the Freeman case] back on the table.”

I think Mr. Mulcair is interested in the truth. When the truth becomes risky in a democracy then you have to question whether you really have a democracy, so I don’t think he is very concerned about political risk, I think he just wants to get at the truth.

That’s a strong endorsement. But it is the endorsement of a “cop shooter.”

Update 12:22am. Identifying sincerity in politics is a fraught exercise. That is the thing about politics: it’s political. But it is, of course, possible that Mr. Mulcair’s decision to meet with Mr. Freeman truly derives from nothing more than a sincere interest and profound belief in a case that supersedes, in his mind, any negative political consequences—that he really believes so strongly that Mr. Freeman is being treated unjustly that he feels it necessary, regardless of good or bad political reactions, to use his position to try to do something about it. But then we can’t see into Mr. Mulcair’s heart.

]]>On Monday, Tony Clement, President of the Treasury Board, presented to the House of Commons the government’s main estimates. This was apparently cause for celebration. Indeed, according to Mr. Clement’s office, the main estimates “reflect the Government of Canada’s ongoing commitment to finding savings and returning to balanced budgets.”

“I think you will find that when you review the estimates, that they do reflect our commitment to sound fiscal management and the commitment to return to the balanced budget within the medium term,” Mr. Clement explained to reporters afterwards. “You will see that the estimates have decreased over the past four years so at this stage of the budgetary cycle, we are continuing to rein in spending. In fact, the estimates are down $4.9 billion from last year.”

But, with a budget still to be tabled, what importance should be attached to the estimates?

“Obviously, the budget is the main economic document of the government,” Mr. Clement clarified. “Having said that, the estimates is a signal of the direction of the government on some basic files and some basic portfolios so it is, I would call it a harbinger, perhaps, a signal of the kind of budget that we will have in 2013-2014.”

On Tuesday, a specific victory was identified and declared as Robert Goguen was sent up to note that, whatever the wild-eyed worries of the New Democrats, the main estimates showed “significant reductions” in prison spending. And lest anyone miss this point, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews followed up with a written statement sent out to reporters by his press secretary. “Last summer, we announced the closure of two prisons to save taxpayer dollars,” Mr. Toews was said to have said, “and yesterday in the Main Estimates, there were significant reductions in the cost of prisons.”

Unfortunately for Mr. Goguen and Mr. Toews, the estimates are apparently not to be taken too seriously. Or at least not quite as seriously as various members of the opposition are now taking them. At least so far as Mr. Clement is now concerned.

“Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives’ planned cuts will make travellers less safe in the air, on the water, or riding the rails,” Olivia Chow declared. “The minister has repeatedly ignored recommendations from the Transportation Safety Board. He just will not implement its recommendations. Conservatives are cutting Transport Canada’s budget by almost 30%. Canadians are travelling more than ever, so how can the minister possibly justify these drastic cuts to transportation safety?”

The Transport Minister attempted to reassure her. “Mr. Speaker, we maintain our core function and we have not cut any frontline safety inspectors,” Denis Lebel explained.

Moving on, Malcolm Allen raised concerns about food safety. “Mr. Speaker, making up stories does not change the facts. Conservatives have cut service to Canadians. Where did they increase the spending? In the Senate, of course,” he huffed. “However, in the spending plans the Conservatives tabled yesterday we learned of more cuts to food safety. This is the same government that brought us the largest meat recall in Canadian history. Reduced meat inspections, ignored compliance orders and increased self-regulation. Why are they gambling with Canadians’ health and why are these reckless cuts coming to Canada’s food safety system?”

Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz was entirely dismissive. Not merely of Mr. Allen’s conclusions, but also of the basis for his premise. “Mr. Speaker, absolutely none of that diatribe is true,” he lamented. “It is well known that the main estimates do not include departments’ total budgets for the year. That is why they are called estimates. The member opposite should know that. There are supplementary estimates throughout the year that continue to build the capacity for CFIA and other departments to do the job that Canadians require of them.”

Apparently unwilling to take Mr. Ritz’s word for it, The NDP’s Peggy Nash pressed on. What of cuts to infrastructure funding and VIA Rail? Why more money for advertising—or the “Ministry of Propaganda,” as Ms. Nash put it? “Are the estimates,” she asked, “a foretaste of what will be in the next budget?”

Forty-eight hours earlier, Mr. Clement had used the word “harbinger” to describe the estimates. And a “harbinger” is something like a “forerunner,” which is a word similar in meaning to “foretaste.” But now Mr. Clement was apparently more concerned that Ms. Nash might be worrying unnecessarily.

“Mr. Speaker, as my honourable colleague, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, has already indicated and as the honourable members should know and do know, the estimates are not the budget,” he patronized. “The estimates are a baseline that is used for planning purposes.”

Merely a baseline. So maybe the spending on prisons will go down. Maybe it will go up. Who is to say really? Certainly not anyone just yet, apparently. (Indeed, there’s still the budget and the public accounts and the supplementary estimates and departmental performance reports to come. Somewhere within those documents will hopefully be something definitive about the state of prison spending. So long as someone has the time and the wherewithal to find it.)

“The budget is the budget,” Mr. Clement explained, next attempting to conclude on a more rousing note, “and of course we will continue to fulfill our responsibilities when it comes to health and safety and the core programs of the federal government. We will continue to build jobs, opportunity and economic prosperity for our country. That is what the budget is about and we will continue to stand with Canadians.”

So never mind. At least for now. The government will get round to explaining itself soon enough. Understand only that the government is committed to “finding savings and returning to balanced budgets” and continuing to “stand with Canadians” How precisely it will go about this saving and returning and standing will be revealed in the fullness of time. Presumably. Maybe. Or at the very least if Kevin Page wins his court case.

]]>Further to this, CBC reported last week that the government will close eight Veterans Affairs offices. Christie Blatchford has reported that military reserve budgets are being slashed. The Canadian Forces recruiting centre in Windsor has closed. And Canada Post is considering service cuts.

In Vancouver, the Kitsilano Coast Guard station was quietly closed last week, apparently to the surprise of Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson. Global News wonders if the closure has something to do with selling the land the station is located on.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-quiet-cuts-30/feed/23The Commons: Diane Finley’s words are used against herhttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-commons-diane-finleys-words-are-used-to-hurt/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-commons-diane-finleys-words-are-used-to-hurt/#commentsMon, 04 Feb 2013 22:41:29 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=346471Let us now debate who are the "bad guys" here

]]>David Christopherson, in furious form, stood to recount the events of Friday morning.

“Last week, the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development, who once described EI as… ‘lucrative‘ defended her new quota system by describing the unemployed as… the bad guys.’ ”

At least in so far as Diane Finley had in fact spoken the phrase “bad guys,” Mr. Christopherson was correct. It is merely in the entire context of those words that the New Democrat led the House astray.

The official opposition had been pestering the minister on Friday morning about a report that quotas had established for inspectors charged with rooting out fraud of the employment insurance system. In the midst of this, Ms. Finley—on two occasions—suggested the New Democrats were on the wrong side of this matter. “Mr. Speaker, with respect to the employment insurance program,” she said, “it is very important to note that, once again, the NDP is supporting the bad guys.”

Perhaps this was a prepared line—an attempt to turn an attack around. Perhaps Ms. Finley came up with this in the moment in a fit of frustration. Either way, the New Democrats have apparently decided to see Ms. Finley’s oversimplification and raise her a distortion.

“Law-abiding out of work Canadians deserve better than to be treated like criminals,” Mr. Christopherson declared. “Why is the government cutting EI just when people need it to the most?”

Here John Baird was provided an opportunity to be reasonable. “Mr. Speaker, my friend from the NDP has it all wrong,” he scolded. “The minister made no such statements. He is flat-out wrong.”

A few moments later, Nycole Turmel stood to read the charges against Ms. Finley en francais. “Tell the truth!” protested a voice from the government side.

Perhaps for the sake of not being too blatant about all this, each of the men and women on the opposition resisted the urge to yell back, “you first!”

Context, of course, has become something of a secondary consideration in this realm. (Though, as a concept, it at least matters more than nuance.)

Somewhere on the campus of Harvard right now, Michael Ignatieff is, for instance, still picking bits and pieces of things he once said out of his rear end. By the time he was defeated, he likely wished he’d never written or spoken a word before being anointed Liberal leader.

What distinguishes the New Democrats from their Victorian predecessors as official opposition is a willingness to engage in this stuff—a certain shamelessness with which they approach this business. The Liberals, for instance, would never have even conceived of presenting the Harper government’s change to the health care funding formula as a $36 billion cut. Mind you, that at least has some basis in what the Finance Minister actually conveyed during the last election campaign. Ms. Finley, on the other hand, is innocent of this specific insinuation—the New Democrats attempting a particularly ungraceful leap of the imagination to pretend otherwise.

“Mr. Speaker, it is rather that member who should apologize to Canadians,” the Human Resources Minister scolded, “because I did not say that.”

(And now having felt the sting of this sort of nonsense, Ms. Finley will no doubt be issuing an apology to Mark Holland.)

The New Democrats were on somewhat surer ground when they stopped pretending that Ms. Finley had attempted to insult anyone but New Democrats. “Mr. Speaker, when Canadians questioned Conservative legislation on privacy concerns, we were accused of standing with child pornographers. Now the Conservatives are resorting to name-calling again, accusing anyone who opposes their EI cuts and quotas of defending fraudsters. Canadians who have lost their jobs, through no fault of their own, deserve better than a minister who calls EI too lucrative and who guts it at every turn,” Chris Charlton explained to the House this afternoon.

Her question then veered back to the day’s opening gambit. “When will the minister stop demonizing the EI recipients and admit that the vast majority are hard-working people who simply want to access the benefits that they themselves paid for?”

Ms. Finley offered her response. “Mr. Speaker, I am totally in support of making sure that EI is there for those who need it when they are eligible for it. That is the whole purpose of it,” she said. “But to do that, we have to maintain the integrity of the system. That means rooting out fraud. That means going after people who are cheating the system and claiming taxpayer dollars to which they are not entitled. We do wish that the NDP would support us in rooting out these people so that those who are entitled to EI, who are eligible, will have the funds there for them when they need it.”

And so we were back to the pre-Friday disagreement over how exactly to go about administering and officiating employment insurance.

Half a dozen questions later, the discussion turned to crime prevention. The New Democrats were generally displeased with the approach of the government side. Public Safety Minister Vic Toews rose to restate the traditional response.

“What the federal government does do is provide the laws that allow the officers to arrest dangerous individuals and put them into custody,” he explained. “Unfortunately, we have not received support from the NDP to do that. At every turn those members have opposed measures to keep violent and dangerous criminals off the street.”

And so, again, the New Democrats were apparently on the side of the bad guys.

]]>Vic Toews acknowledges that the crime rate is going down, this time in a speech on increasing policing costs.

“I’ll be blunt,” Mr. Toews said. “Police services face two options: They can do nothing and eventually be forced to cut drastically, as we have seen in some countries. Or they can be proactive, get ahead of the curve and have greater flexibility in designing and implementing both incremental and meaningful structural reforms.”

The crime rate has required the Conservatives to perform an awkward dance over the years: from dismissing the relevancy of such statistics to dismissing less rigorous forms of analysis to pointing to statistics as proof that their policies are working. As of last July, Mr. Toews had fashioned a new position: the drop in the crime rate demonstrated the success of the Conservatives approach, but the fact that the crime rate was lower in 1962 meant that more had to be done. Conservative MP Guy Lauzon expanded on that idea a week later.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-conservatives-and-the-crime-rate/feed/2Vic Toews responds to Pat Martinhttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/vic-toews-responds-to-pat-martin/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/vic-toews-responds-to-pat-martin/#commentsThu, 20 Dec 2012 18:56:48 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=330719A statement from the Public Safety Minister.“Rather than commending Youth for Christ for the exceptional work they do both in Manitoba and around the world, NDP MP Pat Martin …

“Rather than commending Youth for Christ for the exceptional work they do both in Manitoba and around the world, NDP MP Pat Martin (Winnipeg-Centre) launched into a rambling tirade against the organization through Twitter last night.

For a sitting Member of Parliament to attack an organization with blatant mistruths is both irresponsible and disgraceful. The new facility that Youth for Christ operates from better serves the Winnipeg region and allows it to expand its reach and capacity. It is beyond comprehension why he would attack an organization for its religious affiliations while claiming that it funnels money out of Canada and has low enrollment in the Winnipeg area. These claims are patently false. The funding for Youth for Christ was allocated through Infrastructure Canada as part of Canada’s Economic Action Plan and was meant to allow for the necessary upgrades that would better serve the community. Youth for Christ helps countless disadvantaged youths and works to curb gang activity and the violent life it leads to.

In the midst of his outburst, I understand that Pat Martin was upset about being left off the guest list for another announcement I made earlier this week that would see new residential accommodations built for newcomers.

It is news to me that he is suddenly interested in the concerns of his riding. I’ve dealt with many opposition MPs in Winnipeg, including former MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis and current Winnipeg-North MP Kevin Lamoureux, both of whom have contacted my office previously and have spoken with me regarding funding for their ridings – in my seven years as the Senior Minister for Manitoba, Mr. Martin has not made the same efforts.

Given that the bulk of the money was allocated by the provincial NDP Government, I have to wonder why they also chose not to invite him. Clearly even his own party doesn’t want him at events.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/vic-toews-responds-to-pat-martin/feed/61Pat Martin shall tweet no morehttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/pat-martin-shall-tweet-no-more/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/pat-martin-shall-tweet-no-more/#commentsThu, 20 Dec 2012 17:35:44 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=330652A statement from the NDP.These comments were simply inappropriate and unacceptable. Mr. Martin agrees and we understand that he has decided to stop using his Twitter account.
And with…

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/lavar-payne-is-unimpressed/feed/3The morning afterhttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-morning-after/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-morning-after/#commentsThu, 20 Dec 2012 15:41:19 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=330583Pat Martin talks to the Winnipeg Free Press about all this.Martin told the Free Press this morning he was angry because he found out last night he had not …

Martin told the Free Press this morning he was angry because he found out last night he had not been invited to an announcement on refugee housing in his own riding on Tuesday. “I got upset again,” he said. “I just get so fed up with these guys.” Martin said the former Liberal government always invited opposition MPs to government announcements as a courtesy. The Conservatives he said never do.

Martin has been in trouble on Twitter before for telling someone to “F*** off.” He is also facing a lawsuit from an Alberta robocall company who allege Martin slandered the company last winter. Martin told the Free Press he was not officially commenting on the Youth For Christ situation because he had to do more research to find out if what he was being told is really true. “It was private tweeting to my followers,” he said.

The issue of the Youth for Christ’s centre in Winnipeg goes back to February 2010, when Mr. Martin complained about the federally funded project. Mr. Toews responded to Mr. Martin. After city council approved the project, Mr. Martin pledged to support it. (More on the larger controversy here, here, here, here and here.)

The details of Mr. Toews’ personal life harken back to the Vikileaks controversy earlier this year.

]]>The Scene. In succession, Susan Truppe, the parliamentary secretary for the status of women, Bloc MP Jean-Francois Fortin, interim Liberal leader Bob Rae, NDP leader Thomas Mulcair and Conservative MP Shelly Glover stood in the moments immediately preceding Question Period to mark the anniversary of the massacre at l’École polytechnique de Montréal. At the conclusion of Ms. Glover’s remarks, all members stood and a moment of silence was observed.

The Speaker then called for oral questions.

“Mr. Speaker, the Toronto Star informs us this morning that the Conservative government plans to weaken gun control laws even further,” Mr. Mulcair reported.

There were a couple jeers, likely at this reference to the Star.

“Can the Prime Minister tell Canadians if that is indeed the case?” the NDP leader asked.

“Mr. Speaker, I am aware of the story,” the Prime Minister responded. “Let me be as clear as I can be, prohibited weapons exist as a category under the law for essential reasons of public security. The government has absolutely no intention of weakening that category of protection.”

The Conservatives stood to applaud their man’s assurance, but the Prime Minister’s response was notably limited to only one of the Canadian Firearms Advisory Committee’s recommendations. After restating his question en francais and receiving the same response, Mr. Mulcair alerted the House to the Prime Minister’s specificity. In response, the Prime Minister seemed to broaden his rebuke. “Mr. Speaker,” he said, “this document does not represent the government’s position.”

The NDP’s Francoise Boivin pressed further. “Mr. Speaker, the changes that Conservatives are considering to weaken gun control are dangerous. This could reduce mental health checks for those renewing gun licences,” she explained. “The tragic events of December 6 teach us that public safety, not divisive politics, must be our guide when it comes to gun control.”

There was some grumbling at this reference to divisive politics.

“Will the minister now reassure Canadians,” Ms. Boivin asked, “that he will reject these reckless and dangerous changes proposed by his firearms advisory committee?”

Mr. Toews deferred to statistics. “Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to note that the overall incidents of firearms crime is at the lowest rate in 50 years. The homicide rate with firearms is down 30% since 2008 because of the very strong measures that this government has taken against the criminal use of firearms,” he reported. “I would ask that member to start supporting us on finding ways to prevent the criminal use of firearms.”

The Conservatives stood to applaud.

When it was Bob Rae’s turn, he directed his query at the firearms committee itself. “Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the Prime Minister could perhaps tell us if he would now consider, in light of the recommendations which have come out of this particular committee, adding the chiefs of police to the group of people who will be on the committee as well as those who are engaged in combatting domestic violence and those who are dealing with suicide prevention,” he offered, simply and straightforwardly. “Would the Prime Minister agree that the perspective of these groups might be helpful in reaching a more balanced approach than the one we appear to have?”

Here Mr. Harper clarified the extent of his concern. “Mr. Speaker, once again, I want to emphasize that the positions in this report do not reflect the positions of the government,” he said. “I will take the advice of the leader of the Liberal Party under consideration. Obviously, there is concern with some of the recommendations made in that report and I think that the committee does need some re-examination in that light.”

Mr. Rae seemed almost touched. “Mr. Speaker, it is not often that I can tell the Prime Minister that I appreciate the response,” he offered. “I think it represents a little progress in the discussions.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-commons-a-little-progress/feed/2Voting on Bill C-45: So much standing, sitting and signing of Christmas cardshttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/live-another-long-night-for-another-long-bill/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/live-another-long-night-for-another-long-bill/#commentsWed, 05 Dec 2012 11:00:00 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=323329Aaron Wherry's formerly live blog from a long night in the House

]]>The House of Commons is filling up—the Prime Minister seems to have brought a large stack of paperwork to keep him busy—and voting on C-45 will soon commence. We’ll be here until the end to observer all the sights, sounds, thrills and chills of democracy in motion (specifically the motion of standing and sitting down repeatedly).

Our bluffer’s guide to the second budget implementation act is here. All previous coverage of C-45 is archived here. And our diary of the spring’s vote marathon is here.

3:43pm. The party whips have been duly applauded and the Speaker is now calling the first vote. Thomas Mulcair receives a round of applause as he leads the votes in favour.

3:45pm. If you’d like to follow along with the commentary from the floor, our list of MPs on Twitter is here.

4:06pm. The third vote goes to the nays, 148-134. About 10 Conservative MPs just took their first break.

4:13pm. The fourth vote goes to the nays, 147-134. Nathan Cullen rises on a point of order with some concern that a voice vote was not asked for before the last recorded vote. The Speaker acknowledges his error and promises to make sure a voice vote is taken before each recorded vote from now on.

4:20pm. The fifth vote goes to the nays, 243-38—with the New Democrats joining the Conservatives in voting no. The second shift change on the Conservative side just took place.

4:26pm. Raffi, who was in attendance for Question Period, is unimpressed.

4:30pm. The fifth vote goes to the nays, 148-134.

4:31pm. According to a source close to the NDP leader, Thomas Mulcair is presently reading a book entitled, “Regulation theory and sustainable development.”

4:38pm. The sixth vote goes to the nays with the New Democrats voting in the negative. Dan Harris explains. The Conservatives are passing around a bag of peanut M&Ms.

4:45pm. Pierre Poilievre is very careful to make sure the ink has dried on his Christmas cards before he puts them in their respective envelopes. He was just using a very elaborate sweeping hand gesture (sort of a figure eight) to air out a card.

4:49pm. There are four spectators in the south gallery watching this standing, sitting and signing of Christmas cards.

4:51pm. Dick Harris is wearing sun glasses. He spent most of the spring vote marathon with his tie undone.

4:57pm. The stuffed dog that occupied a seat on the government side during the C-38 votes has not shown up for these votes. Perhaps he was kicked out of caucus.

5:03pm. Jim Flaherty might be sleeping. Wait, nope, I think the NDP’s clapping for Mr. Mulcair woke him up. Another reason to ban clapping in the House. Would make it easier to nap.

5:08pm. Pierre Poilievre is reading the dictionary.

5:24pm. A statement from Ted Menzies has just been sent out to convey the minister of state’s profound disappointment with the NDP’s desire to remove the legislation related to pooled retirement pension plans from C-45. “Canadians should be disappointed,” he suggests, “that the opposition would launch an irresponsible attack and attempt to block a measure that will help millions of Canadians meet their retirement goals.”

5:27pm. Dan Harris and John Baird just joked about Mr. Harris tossing a peanut M&M across the aisle to Mr. Baird. Even at this dark hour, bipartisanship lives.

5:35pm. The opposition, in the judgment of the Speaker, just won a voice vote. Alas, the Conservatives demanded a recorded vote, which the opposition will now lose.

5:42pm. The Prime Minister just took his leave with the latest government shift change. Some degree of jeering from the NDP side ensued.

7:17pm. Rona Ambrose has opened the top of her desk and propped up her iPad underneath to create her own personal movie theatre. And whatever she’s watching just made her look away and grimace.

7:45pm. It is believed there are a mere 15 votes remaining. John Baird’s yelling at someone.

7:47pm. Controversy on the opposition as Ted Hsu frets that in standing up to request an antihistamine for Ms. Duncan he might have accidentally recorded a vote for the government.

7:49pm. The Prime Minister has returned. And has returned to his paperwork.

7:53pm. The NDP has commenced slow voting. The Conservatives are jeering. This vote apparently has to do with the Navigable Waters Protection Act. Nathan Cullen just carried on a back-and-forth with James Moore while voting. “Nice work children!” called someone on the government side. Gordon O’Connor, the government whip, is appealing for quiet from his side.

8:00pm. John Baird is providing running commentary on the slow vote. He declared this to be the NDP’s “productivity in the workplace policy,” which the government backbench enjoyed. There was also something about the New Democrats thinking they were getting time and a half.

#SlowVoting by NDP now succeeded by quick voting by Liberals. “Bob Rae knows how to get it up!” a person next to me quips loudly…

John Baird is to Mr. Clement’s immediate right. Jim Flaherty is to Mr. Clement’s immediate left.

8:11pm. That motion is defeated, but the slow voting continues, led by a methodical Mr. Mulcair.

8:14pm. Peter Julian just luxuriated in the act of voting. Pausing, once on his feet, to do both buttons on his jacket, then slowly bow his head, before returning to his seat.

8:15pm. “Canadians are watching!” calls a voice on the government side.

8:17pm. Alexandre Boulerice just paused once on his feet to take two sips of water and then made a water-flowing motion with his right hand before returning to his seat.

8:24pm. I believe Rona Ambrose just gasped at whatever she’s watching on her iPad.

8:29pm. A particularly enthusiastic cheer for the Prime Minister as he leads the government vote.

8:34pm. With that motion defeated, the NDP returns to normal speed.

8:56pm. The Prime Minister passes along a photo to demonstrate how much he enjoys voting.

9:18pm. At this late hour, it is a test to see which gentlemen in the House still have the manners to button their jackets when standing and unbutton their jackets upon returning to their seats. Matthew Dube, for instance, did well this time through. The Prime Minister as well.

9:24pm. John Baird now kidding with the NDP frontbench, notes that this sort of thing didn’t happen when he was Government House leader. I think Mr. Baird enjoys these things. I believe he has successfully yelled “hear, hear!” each time the Prime Minister has voted so far.

9:30pm. It’s possible we’re down to the last five votes.

9:34pm. Rick Dykstra expertly cracks open a can of pop and pours himself a drink under his desk so as not to too gratuitously offend the orders of this place.

9:38pm. The motion is defeated 148-133.

9:42pm. There are now 10 people in the south gallery to watch the exciting conclusion.

9:46pm. The motion is defeated 146-132.

9:47pm. Glenn Thibeault notes the ominous number of the amendment to be voted on.

9:49pm. Bob Rae receives a standing ovation from the Liberal corner. The Conservatives across the way add their applause. When the vote moves to the government side, Mr. Harper receives a standing ovation from his MPs.

9:52pm. MPs are beginning to pack up their belongings.

9:53pm. The motion is defeated 153-133.

9:54pm. The last vote, to pass the budget at report stage. The Conservatives yell “yay,” the New Democrats scream “no.” Deputy Speaker Joe Comartin gives the voice vote to the opposition, but a recorded vote is demanded. A standing ovation and prolonged applause for the Prime Minister as the government side votes.

9:58pm. The Conservatives cheer the last of their votes and then the New Democrats treat Thomas Mulcair to a standing ovation and prolonged applause for Thomas Mulcair as he leads the nays. The New Democrats continue cheering as the clerks call their votes. As they did last spring, the NDP chant “deux-mille-quinze!” The Conservatives respond by banging their desks and chanting “carbon tax!”

10:01pm. Elizabeth May casts the last no vote and the bill is passed at report stage. The Conservatives applaud. Mr. Harper accepts handshakes. MPs on all sides file out and the House moves to adjournment debate. Applause can be heard from the government lobby.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/live-another-long-night-for-another-long-bill/feed/6Justin Trudeau and the long gun registryhttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/justin-trudeau-and-the-long-gun-registry/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/justin-trudeau-and-the-long-gun-registry/#commentsMon, 03 Dec 2012 13:00:34 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=322537Over the weekend, Justin Trudeau used the word “failure” to describe the long gun registry.The fact that we have a government, or successive governments, that have managed to polarize …

]]>Over the weekend, Justin Trudeau used the word “failure” to describe the long gun registry.

The fact that we have a government, or successive governments, that have managed to polarize the conversations around gun ownership to create games in electoral races when you don’t have to have a … There is no concept, no idea, that gun ownership is ever going to be under attack for law-abiding hunters and farmers across this country. But we need to keep our cities safe and I don’t see that that’s an unsolvable solution but I do see that the long-gun registry, as it was, was a failure and I am not going to rescuscitate that. But we will continue to look at ways of keeping our cities safe and making sure that we do address the concerns around domestic violence right across the country in rural as well as urban areas in which, unfortunately, guns do play a role. But there are better ways of keeping us safe than that registry…

Mr. Trudeau voted against C-391, Mr. Bergen’s bill that would have eliminated the registry, in September 2010. And afterwards he apparently had this interaction with protesters on Parliament Hill.

At the time of that vote, it should probably be noted, the Liberals were promising to reform the registry in response to “legitimate criticisms” of it. (Michael Ignatieff whipped the pivotal vote on C-391, but Mr. Trudeau also voted no at second reading.)

So is this a flip-flop? I’m not sure. It sort of depends on what Mr. Trudeau means by “as it was” and “failure.” In other words, it requires a follow-up question. (Like, “what do you mean it was a failure?”)

His campaign attempted to explain on Sunday (though without quite answering that proposed follow-up).

Trudeau’s spokeswoman, Kate Monfette, said Sunday Trudeau and his party fought to maintain the registry “given the absence of any responsible approach to gun violence by this government.” “We were not successful in that fight, the registry and its data are gone, so we now have to develop a new approach.”

]]>Police chiefs are pushing for the resurrection of the government’s “lawful access” legislation.

In recent weeks, Canada’s police chiefs have launched an aggressive campaign – using online videos, Twitter blasts and letters to the editor – to jumpstart discussion about controversial Bill C-30 … Tim Smith, spokesman for the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, said this week the association decided to resurrect discussion on Bill C-30 after becoming concerned over the summer that the government was going to let the bill “die on the order paper” or that the government might introduce a watered-down version of the bill.

“We were given no indication that they were moving forward with C-30. We then made the decision to re-launch our effort. Out of courtesy we made them aware of the launch a few days before,” Smith said. “Since the launch of the campaign, there has been some discussion (with the government), but nothing towards firmly establishing the direction the government will take on this.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-return-of-c-30/feed/2Why did the NDP vote against the war memorials bill?http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/why-did-the-ndp-vote-against-the-war-memorials-bill/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/why-did-the-ndp-vote-against-the-war-memorials-bill/#commentsFri, 09 Nov 2012 20:28:14 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=313556Vic Toews wonders.
I was confused on this point myself so earlier this week I asked the NDP. I was directed to this letter from the Royal Canadian Legion and…

]]>The Scene. Rosane Doré Lefebrve wondered if the Public Safety Minister, given yesterday’s tone, might like to apologize to the family of Ashley Smith. The New Democrats present stood to applaud this suggestion.

Vic Toews stood and reported to the House as follows.

“Mr. Speaker, let me be clear on what I said,” he said. “This is a very sad case and our thoughts go out to Ms. Smith’s family. Some of the behaviour seen in these videos is absolutely unacceptable. Our government has directed Correctional Service Canada to fully co-operate with the coroner’s inquest.”

Ms. Doré Lefebrve was not impressed. “Mr. Speaker, this is not really an apology, but that’s probably all he is capable of doing,” she scolded.

There were groans from the government side.

Hopefully Mr. Toews’ aim yesterday was not to scare opposition MPs away from this subject. It seemed, instead, to have had the opposite effect. Where on Tuesday afternoon, the case of Ashley Smith was not raised until the ninth opportunity, today it was the subject of five of the first eight questions.

Ms. Doré Lefebrve repeated her query of the day before: would the government be implementing the recommendations of the corrections investigator?

Mr. Toews stood and reported as follows.

“Mr. Speaker, our government has always stood for the rights of victims and has done the right thing in regard to Ashley Smith. Not only did I direct CSC to settle litigation nearly two years ago, but CSC has also now been directed to co-operate fully with the coroner’s inquest,” he explained.

“Five years too late!” yelled Marc Garneau from the Liberal corner.

“In respect of an action plan, this is something that I raised with the provincial ministers over a year ago,” Mr. Toews continued. “As a result of our discussions last week with the Minister of Justice and all of the provincial and territorial ministers, we are in fact examining an action plan to deal with mental illness.”

Now it was Bob Rae’s turn and, like yesterday, the interim Liberal leader piled up three more questions.

“The coroner’s inquest in Ontario only covers the last year in custody,” he noted. “I would like to ask the government, is Corrections Canada in possession of other videos with respect to the care and treatment of Ashley Smith prior to the period under the jurisdiction of the coroner’s inquest? Has any one in the government seen those videos? Is the government now prepared to make any such videos public?”

John Baird, the Prime Minister’s stand-in, took this one, offering several reassurances without addressing the questions.

Mr. Rae was unimpressed and reiterated his queries. After some glancing back-and-forth along the government front bench, it was decided that Mr. Toews would respond this time.

“Despite the jurisdictional limitations of the coroner, we have indicated that CSC is to co-operate fully with the coroner,” Mr. Toews explained, holding no piece of paper this time. “If the coroner has need of certain information, the coroner simply can ask or subpoena for that information. I have directed CSC to co-operate.”

Mr. Rae held out his hands as if to plead for understanding. “Mr. Speaker, the minister who is in charge of Corrections Canada either knows or does not know whether or not there are videos for the period that he knows perfectly well are not covered by the coroner’s inquest,” he explained.

Now he crossed his left hand under his right arm and pointed with his right hand at the government side.

“I am asking the minister very directly, if the Government of Canada is really interested in getting to the bottom of this, why not deal with the jurisdictional issues that are still before the coroner because of the objections of some of the contracting physicians?” he asked “Why not hold a public inquiry which will deal with the entire period under which Ashley Smith has been custody?”

There was some grumbling from government members at this reference to a public inquiry.

“The facts dealing with her case have to come out,” Mr. Rae concluded.

Once more to Mr. Toews. “Mr. Speaker, a coroner’s inquest is a public inquiry,” he offered. “Not only does that coroner have jurisdiction in respect of subpoenas, we have directed, in so far as Correctional Services of Canada has any relevant information with respect to this matter, it shall be disclosed if the coroner requests it.”

He was a bit more insistent here, but yesterday’s cross words were not repeated.

The Stats. Prisons, five questions. Veterans and government services, four questions each. The economy and the budget, three questions each. Canada Post, ethics, intergovernmental affairs, foreign investment, the F-35 and the coast guard, two questions each. Employment insurance, infrastructure, history, fisheries, the environment, trade, arts funding and crime, one question each.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-commons-less-acrimony-from-vic-toews-more-questions-for-him/feed/9Obama-Biden and Romney-Ryan buttons at U.S. Embassy partyhttp://www.macleans.ca/general/obama-biden-and-romney-ryan-buttons-at-u-s-embassy-party/
http://www.macleans.ca/general/obama-biden-and-romney-ryan-buttons-at-u-s-embassy-party/#respondWed, 07 Nov 2012 04:06:20 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=312124The U.S. Embassy held an election party at the Château Laurier. Obama-Biden and Romney-Ryan buttons were given out. Attendees could also have their pic taken with Barack Obama and/or Mitt…

]]>The U.S. Embassy held an election party at the Château Laurier. Obama-Biden and Romney-Ryan buttons were given out. Attendees could also have their pic taken with Barack Obama and/or Mitt Romney cutouts.

“Mr. Speaker, in her 11 and a half months in federal custody, Ashley Smith was involved in 160 use of force incidents. She was subjected to a barrage of inhumane treatment: pepper spray, tasering, duct tape, and chemical restraints,” the NDP’s Randall Garrison recounted. “We know our correction system failed Ashley Smith, and we know the correctional investigator has put forward basic recommendations to prevent tragedies like this from ever happening again. Once again I ask the minister, will he commit today to fully implementing these recommendations on dealing with mental illness in our correction system so there are no more tragedies like Ashley Smith?”

It was Vic Toews’ responsibility to take this. “Mr. Speaker, this is a very sad case. Our thoughts go out to Ms. Smith’s family,” the Public Safety Minister offered. “This tragedy continues to show that individuals with mental health issues do not belong in prisons but in professional facilities. At the same time, our government continues to take concrete steps on the issue of mental health in prison. Since 2006, we have invested nearly $90 million in mental health for prisoners and we have taken action to improve access to mental health treatment and training for staff.”

The NDP’s Rosane Doré Lefebrve stood and seemed to suggest that a tragedy was not the word to describe Ms. Smith’s fate: that this was not an accident that couldn’t have been predicted. “In the case of Ashley Smith, and too many women with mental illness, you could see it coming,” she said. She then restated the question. “It’s been a week since the NDP has been asking questions about the subject, whether the Conservatives will implement the recommendations of the Correctional Investigator of Canada,” she said. “Will the Conservatives follow the advice of the Correctional Investigator of Canada, yes or no?”

“However,” he segued, “I would note that the NDP, while consistently speaking on behalf of prisoners, never speaks on behalf of the victims of these prisoners. It never talks about the damage done to people outside of prisons. I wish New Democrats would take a more balanced view about what it means to have a safe society, not simply the individuals in the prisons but those who are abused outside of the prisons.”

There were noises of astonishment from the opposition side. Sylvain Chicoine, the New Democrat next scheduled to pose a question, stood up from the back row and waited for the Speaker to call on him, but the front row had apparently decided on the spot to make a line-up change. Nathan Cullen motioned for Mr. Chicoine to sit and alerted the Speaker that it would be Thomas Mulcair, seated to Mr. Cullen’s immediate left, who would go next.

Mr. Mulcair stood and looked directly at Mr. Toews. “Mr. Speaker,” the NDP leader asked, “is that minister capable of understanding that she was the victim here?”

The New Democrats stood to applaud the query and the sentiment contained therein. The Liberals soon joined them.

Mr. Toews was apparently undaunted. “Mr. Speaker, I have made it very clear where our government stands on that and I am very proud of the position that the Prime Minister took in terms of ensuring that our officials in Correctional Service Canada co-operate completely with the coroner,” he explained.

There was heckling from the opposition side. Mr. Toews pointed at Mr. Mulcair. “I would like to ask that member,” the minister offered, “who has never once stood and spoken for victims, why is it that he is always silent when it comes to victims outside of our prisons?”

The House moved on to other matters, but when the questions came back around to the Liberals, it was Bob Rae who stood up.

“Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Public Safety praised the Prime Minister for changing the direction of the coroner’s inquest in Toronto and for giving different instructions to Corrections officials than in fact took place,” the interim Liberal prefaced.

On this, Mr. Rae had three questions. “I would like to ask the minister very directly, why did he not issue these instructions months, indeed years ago? Why did lawyers for the Government of Canada consistently take the position that the coroner’s inquest did not have jurisdiction over critical issues facing Ashley Smith? Why would the minister have left this up to a statement by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons in response to a question from the opposition?”

In his seat, Mr. Toews unclipped a blue piece of paper from the binder in front of him. Rising to respond he seemed to stick mostly to his script.

“Mr. Speaker, we made it very clear that we want to ensure Corrections Canada co-operates fully with the coroner’s inquest,” he explained. “It was for that reason we made sure, through the Prime Minister’s statement…”

The Liberal corner laughed.

“.. that the arguments with respect to the limited constitutional jurisdiction of the coroner were no longer pursued,” Mr. Toews continued.

“In fact,” he concluded, “the coroner has the full ability to look into this particular case.”

Afterwards in the foyer, Mr. Rae departed from reporters’ questions about the American election to offer a bit of unrequested advice to the government side. “I thought Mr. Toews today really in reaching down way low in a partisan sense to try to score some partisan points with respect to the Ashley Smith situation I think he did himself and the government a real disservice,” Mr. Rae ventured. “I think it’s a situation that requires a different response from our ministers than we’ve seen.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-commons-vic-toews-again-imparts-his-judgment/feed/48‘It is a tax because it will raise costs’http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/it-is-a-tax-because-it-will-raise-costs/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/it-is-a-tax-because-it-will-raise-costs/#commentsTue, 30 Oct 2012 16:37:55 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=309188In protesting the NDP’s cap-and-trade proposal, Vic Toews adds to the definition of a tax.They can call it whatever they want, but the NDP plan to make carbon a …

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/it-is-a-tax-because-it-will-raise-costs/feed/11‘It is a question of credibility for the government’http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/it-is-a-question-of-credibility-for-the-government/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/it-is-a-question-of-credibility-for-the-government/#commentsThu, 25 Oct 2012 13:15:23 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=307062Here is the text of Thomas Mulcair’s speech in the House yesterday—with periodic interjections from Conservative MPs—on C-45, the second budget implementation bill. He spoke just after Shelly Glover began …

]]>Here is the text of Thomas Mulcair’s speech in the House yesterday—with periodic interjections from Conservative MPs—on C-45, the second budget implementation bill. He spoke just after Shelly Glover began the debate for the Conservatives.

Mr. Mulcair is mistaken on one point. Stephen Harper did not promise a price on carbon of $65 per tonne in a speech to the British Parliament. The speech was delivered at the Canada-UK Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. Speaker, in life, as in politics, everything revolves around whether we have credibility. I will read page 282 of the budget, because that is what my colleague was referring to. So we, along with all the Canadians who are watching, will know whether page 282 of the budget mentions the Navigable Waters Protection Act.

In life, as in politics, everything revolves around whether we have credibility. The member just told us that on page 282 of the budget we would find a reference to the Navigable Waters Protection Act. I will now read page 282 of the budget. Under “Transport Portfolio”, it states:

“Organizations in the Transport portfolio identified a combination of productivity-enhancing and transformative measures that change the way programs and services are delivered and support the Government’s agenda of refocusing government and reducing red tape.”

I ask members to retain that term because, in the Conservatives’ mouths, reducing red tape is synonymous with reducing public protection. Walkerton, XL Foods and listeriosis is reducing public protection. That is a theme we will be talking a lot about this afternoon. I will continue.

“Non-core activities will be reduced while maintaining capacity related to core mandates in order to protect the safety of Canadians and support economic growth.”

“For example, VIA Rail Canada Inc. will pursue productivity improvements such as augmenting the performance of the heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems….”

Navigable Waters Protection Act? Not so far.

“…on-board trains to reduce maintenance costs, reduce energy consumption, and increase passenger comfort. It will also implement automation projects such as electronic ticketing and invoicing systems.”

This is kind of interesting because this is where it starts cutting, like it cut the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, where it cut things that directly protect Canadians’ health and safety. Here we have cuts ongoing of $59.7 million. We have Marine Atlantic, the Jacques Cartier and Champlain Bridges Inc. cut. The Champlain Bridge is about to fall down but it is going to cut. It goes on to mention Transport Canada and VIA Rail Canada and there is a note at the bottom of the page that states:

“The Government is committed to balance air travel security expenses with Air Travellers Security Charge revenues over time. Totals may not add due to rounding.”

Members may have noticed that there was no reference whatsoever in there to the Navigable Waters Protection Act. What is up?

What is up is this. On the website of the Department of Transport, under the heading Navigable Waters Protection Act, there is a summary of what that centennial legislation does. It is groundbreaking. It is a model for the world of how to protect the environment. Canada has literally millions of lakes and tens of thousands of rivers. It is constitutionally the purview, the responsibility and the obligation of the federal government, specifically in the Constitution Act, 1867, to care for navigable and floatable waters.

I have the wording straight from the website. By the way, the website was changed last night after my colleague, the member Halifax, raised it yesterday afternoon. This is pure Orwellian. The Conservatives make things disappear when it does not agree with the version they have decided to concoct and invent. It states:

“The NWPA minimizes the interference of navigation on navigable waters throughout Canada. It ensures a balance between the public right to navigate and the need to build works such as bridges, dams or docks in navigable waters.”

“With this goal in mind, the NWPA: prohibits the throwing or depositing of any material into navigable waters.”

That stops people from polluting waters in Canada. It sounds like environmental protection to me, but obviously the member has never quite gotten around to reading the act. It is there. It is one of the statutes of Canada. It is alphanumeric. It works with the alphabet, N-22.

What is “Substantial Interference”? The application reads:

“This approval process is usually longer, requiring you to complete additional steps – including advertising the proposed project to the public and undertaking an environmental assessment in accordance with the requirements under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA).”

That is another act that the Conservatives are destroying with their budget. There is no mention, but in the budget implementation act, as they did in the spring with Bill C-38, they are destroying it again. They are removing environmental assessments in Canada. We will go from thousands of environmental assessments every year in Canada to a couple of dozen. That is because it is a preordained result. They started making the mistake in energy projects. They were no longer referring to the environmental assessment process. They were talking about the approval process. It was a slip of the tongue but it was really revealing.

The Supreme Court of Canada in the Oldman River dam case, a decision by Mr. Justice Lamer on behalf of the court, made it abundantly clear that there was no possibility of building a project like that unless the environment was respected. That was a landmark case in Canada and it was based on the Navigable Waters Protection Act. It is so incredibly mind-numbing to hear the Minister of Transport say that the Navigable Waters Protection Act has never had anything to do with the environment, it has to do with navigation. It is unbelievable. It has protected water courses throughout our history, it is a model for the world, it is being destroyed and it was never in the budget.

I listened to some of the economic theories of the government. This week, in The Hill Times, a reputable publication if there is one, the expert economist David Crane published an interesting paper entitled, “Resources are important but they’re not enough”. It is worth going through the words of Mr. Crane. He stated:

“The strongest economy is one that is well-diversified, both in its sources of economic growth and in its markets. Ignoring the need for a vibrant advanced manufacturing industry and high-value knowledge-based services, as well as a resource sector that upgrades it[s] output in Canada, is a recipe for disaster.”

He goes on to look, chapter and verse, through all of the things that the member who just spoke bragged about as being the Conservatives’ economic theory and dismantles it. He shows that, what we have been saying for years now, Canada is losing the balanced economy that we had painstakingly built up since the Second World War, we are losing an economy that had a strong and vibrant resource sector, a primary sector that includes agriculture and the fishery, but it also had a diverse and strong manufacturing sector and, of course, a service sector.

Since the Conservatives came to power, we have lost hundreds of thousands of good paying manufacturing jobs, jobs that came with enough of a salary for a family to live on and, more often than not, came with a pension. Those jobs are being replaced by part-time precarious work in the service sector and, more important, no pension. In addition to the environmental debt that we are leaving in the backpacks of future generations, the one I just described, allowing companies to use our air, soil and water as an unlimited free dumping ground, we are also leaving a social debt because when those people retire without enough to live on, who will pick up the tab? It will be the next generation. If we allow the Conservatives to continue, we will become the first generation in Canadian history to leave less to the next generation than what we ourselves received. We will not let that happen.

The last time the Conservatives took to shoving one of their omnibus bills down the throats of Canadians, it was Bill C-38 last spring.

This bill is the continuation of what the Conservatives started last spring. Once they started and we realized that dozens of different laws were going to be negatively affected, along with the rights of Canadians and future generations, members on this side of the House tried to make use of the tools at our disposal as parliamentarians. We were facing an unprecedented situation in the history of Canada’s Parliament.

Having a majority is not unprecedented. In fact, majority governments were the norm until just recently. What is new is having a government that is so arrogant and so unwilling to listen to the public that it thinks it is an emperor.

It did not need anyone. It no longer needed to talk with anyone. We are here to voice the concerns of our constituents. We are here to be heard.

In response to a question, the hon. member for Saint Boniface asked us earlier if we were aware of the global recession. I would remind the member that it was her Minister of Finance who, in the middle of that global crisis in the fall of 2008, denied its existence and refused to take action. Talk about arrogance.

Their complete lack of priorities means that instead of trimming the fat from government as needed, they are hacking and slashing away with a rusty machete. They have never defined their priorities, quite simply because they are just happy to be in power. They like to be in power, but they do not like to govern. What is the difference? One is the mere fact of occupying the most seats in the House, while the other requires competence in public administration in the interest of Canadians, and not in the interest of their Conservative cronies.

They do not have any priorities. Their most recent 450-page budget bill affects 64 other bills, including 20 that were not even mentioned in last spring’s budget. As we just demonstrated, the Navigable Waters Protection Act, like 19 other acts, is not even mentioned in the budget.

As I said earlier, it is a question of credibility for the government. Let us look at some of the facts. Let us look at some examples of its public administration and measure them against what should be considered public priorities.

What could be more important than protecting the health and, indeed, the lives of Canadians? If we look at the whole pyramid of public administration, it ultimately exists to provide one thing: a service to the public. What service could be more important than public protection?

What is in the budget bill is a $46.6 million cut to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. That is in here, word for word. The Conservatives talk about things that are not in here, but I am talking about things that are in here, and this is at page 261. It is in there.

Brad Butt: Is there a carbon tax in there?

Thomas Mulcair: One of the brilliant members of the peanut gallery has just asked a question that I am pleased to respond to. His question was, is there a carbon tax in there? That is interesting, because where we will find a cap and trade system proposed is in the 2008 platform of the Conservative Party.

An hon. member: Say it isn’t so.

An hon. member: That can’t be.

Brad Butt: But it’s not in that bill.

Thomas Mulcair: What is interesting is that in 2008, the Conservative Prime Minister went to the mother of all parliaments and told the parliamentarians there that it was his plan to have a cap and trade system. He even put a price on carbon. He put a $65-a-tonne price on carbon, in front of the parliament.

Far be it from us to think for a second that in the mother of all parliaments he was telling the mother of all fibs, so let us take him at his word.

In 2008, it was actually a bit less. However, if we take the figure for 2008 at $65 a tonne, do members know what that equates to in Canada? About $45 billion.

If we were in the same business as the brilliant and talented member who just spoke from the netherworld of the backbenches of the Conservatives, we would be able to argue that it was a carbon tax of $45 billion. However, that would not be quite true, because it was a cap and trade system and the only way of dealing with greenhouse gases.

The member for Saint Boniface quoted a newspaper writer who talked about so-called greenhouse gas emissions. That is quite something, because it betrays a fundamental belief of the troglodytes that somehow greenhouse gases are something that one believes in. They do not really exist. There is no such thing really, as far as the Conservatives are concerned, as global warming. It is just something that is being made up to scare people, or in the unforgettable words of the Conservative Prime Minister when he was describing the Kyoto protocol, he said it was something invented “to suck money out of wealth-producing nations”. There was no such thing as global warming, so no action was needed.

Some hon. members: Hear, hear!

Thomas Mulcair: We can hear them, Mr. Speaker. They are saying “Hear, hear”. There we go. They are excited. I would like to know how much greenhouse gas emissions come from suntan salons, for example. Maybe we could reduce those as well.

The Conservatives’ tactics include 450 pages, 64 separate acts, with 20 that were never in the budget, no study, no accountability, no consultation with the Canadians affected and no respect for Canadians, who deserve better.

The basic job of every person elected to the House is to make sure that public money is being well spent, to make sure legislation is rational and well thought out. That is our job. We have given ourselves institutions to help ourselves do that.

For example, under the Parliament of Canada Act we now have a Parliamentary Budget Officer who has the legal right to receive all financial information so he can inform our debates in the public interest. The Conservatives boast about the fact that they brought that position in via their responsibility act. They have never obeyed it any more than they have obeyed the fixed dates for elections. This is the art of being a Conservative: A conservative stands on a soapbox, announces what he or she is going to do, and then does the exact opposite.

The Conservatives are denying what is written in Canadian law. They are going against the will of Parliament. They are frustrating the ability of the Parliamentary Budget Officer to do the job he was asked to do, indeed mandated to do by law in the public interest, simply because he has stood up to them time and again. He refuses to be another one of their marionettes parroting lines written for him by the Prime Minister’s Office. Of course, for that he must be punished as far as they are concerned.

The Conservatives are using omnibus legislation to sneak past Canadians hundreds of changes to these different acts, and we will not let them do it.

The latest incarnation of this mammoth bill includes budget cuts, including to various organizations, commissions and boards that were put in place to ensure greater responsibility and accountability. This strong tendency, which began in the spring, only persists. They are putting more and more powers into the hands of various ministers and departments.

For example, the Conservatives are eliminating the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission, which helped protect workers from hazardous materials in the workplace. That is not something the Conservatives talked about in the budget. It is going to have an effect on workers’ lives. We will stand up and fight this every step of the way.

They are repealing the Grain Appeal Tribunal. This is interesting because that tribunal actually helped producers by giving them a right of appeal when they had been given a grade for their wheat and they did not agree with it.

It is the same government that said that it was going to scrap the wheat board. There was never any logical reason for it.

Vic Toews: We did scrap the wheat board.

Thomas Mulcair: One of the ministers from Winnipeg just said that they did scrap the wheat board, Mr. Speaker. Unfortunately for him, he is going off his talking points, because the talking point is not that they scrapped it but that they made it better. He just told us that they did scrap it. Whoopsie. More reading for the suntan salon.

The cabinet takes even more power to rule on environmental assessments and pipelines even while firing the scientists who give them expert advice.

Of course, it is the government that decided during the summer that it was the new church of Conservative scientists. Let us remember what the Conservatives said during the summer: they told us that from now on they had decided they were going to believe in science. How did they prove that? They fired most of the scientists in the government, because they were not needed any more as the Conservatives were now the scientists. The ones the government did not fire were muzzled.

The government is getting rid of things like the Experimental Lakes Area, which is the only place on planet Earth where whole lake ecosystems can be studied. The government is scrapping it.

What do we get from the Conservatives?

The government has an imitator at the other end of the House. He is constantly imitating the newscaster who is given documents to read and does not even know what is in them. He stands up and tells us time and time again that there is really no problem with the Experimental Lakes Area. He says that as long as someone is willing to buy it, it can continue.

Let us imagine. How can we have government scientists doing science in an area that belongs to all Canadians if it is sold to private interests? That is the road the government wants to take us down.

Our very own Ron Burgundy stands up time and time again and reads whatever is put in front of him by the Prime Minister’s Office. He does not even know what is written on the piece of paper and does not realize how absurd it is. He is the same person who now believes that Canada is in a situation to actually reduce greenhouse gases and meet its undertakings under international agreements. Nothing could be further from the truth. The government will not be able to meet any of those obligations, because it does not even have a plan to meet them.

As I mentioned earlier, with regard to public safety, there is a pyramid of public administration that exists to protect the public.

When cuts have to be made, the very last things that should be affected are direct services to the public. What are we seeing instead? What did I point out earlier? The Conservatives are making $47 million in cuts to food safety, over $100 million in cuts to air safety and cuts to maritime search and rescue centres. We are talking about services that literally save lives, and the Conservatives are making cuts to them. The Conservatives should ask the people of Quebec City and Kitsilano what they think about this.

The Conservatives are making cuts to the Coast Guard and border security. These are things we are extremely concerned about.

Earlier today, we had the opportunity to listen to the hon. member for Compton—Stanstead describe exactly what is happening at the border in his riding. This is what it means to have no priorities. This is what it means to have no understanding of public administration.

Earlier, I listened to the fantasies and fabrications of the hon. member for Saint Boniface. She painted an imagined picture of what she believes is our approach to public administration.

When we look at the official opposition’s experience and the F-35 debacle—a file for which the Conservatives never bothered to assess Canada’s needs, never held a competitive bidding process and never determined who the lowest compliant bidder was, and on which they have spent $700 million to date when this aircraft does not even meet Canada’s needs—we realize which side of the House the competent MPs are on. It is certainly not the Conservative side. The Conservatives are a bunch of incompetents. Their negligence is disgraceful. We will replace them in 2015.

This week, as 1.3 million pounds of contaminated, tainted meat was being dumped in an Alberta landfill, who was the minister? It was the same minister who four years ago told lame jokes about death by a thousand cold cuts as 23 Canadians died because he had not done his job of putting in place a competent food inspection system.

When the opposition unanimously called for his resignation, who stood up and defended him? The Prime Minister.

This is no longer a question of the incompetent Minister of Agriculture; it is a question of the Prime Minister who is endangering public safety by allowing him to stay in place.

The Minister of Agriculture has absolved himself of any responsibility by saying that he did not carry out the inspections. This is the same gang that every day keeps harping about the queen, everything royal and the monarchy. If they have such nostalgia for the queen, they should think about other parliamentary institutions, the British institutions, where the underpinning of the British parliamentary system is ministerial accountability. It is the minister who is responsible, not the inspectors. It is the minister who did not do his job and who did not ensure that the inspectors were protecting the public. He should be booted out; he is ultimately responsible.

The minister knew about the safety violations at XL Foods. He knew the company was withholding testing data. He knew the Americans had deemed the plant unsafe. In fact, we would never have known about any of this if it had not been for the Americans doing their job of inspecting the meat at the border. Good thing we have the American inspectors as whistleblowers. It took him two more weeks to sound the alarm after the Americans already knew.

Budget cuts of $46.6 million and 300 positions cut is in the budget. Unlike the fantasy about the Navigable Waters Protection Act, that is in the budget: 300 positions cut at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, public protection endangered, Canadian lives endangered.

He dares to point at others. He points at the inspectors and says that it is their fault. Here is where the fault lies. Instead of enforcing legislation in the public interest, instead of doing as the Americans do, going in and enforce, the Conservatives have a self-reporting system. Maybe that is where they got their marks in university. They gave themselves their own marks. They reported their own results to their teachers. Maybe that is what it is. It is the only way to explain it. We do not ask people we are supposed to be enforcing and inspecting to tell us whether they are actually doing it. With public money, we send in inspectors, check them, enforce and regulate in the public interest.

The result is a hit for our farmers and our producers. It is a hit for public confidence in our food system. Everyone loses because the Conservatives are not doing their jobs.

In spite of 50 years of economic growth in our country, the Prime Minister would have us believe that the institutions, the services and the programs we have relied on for generations have suddenly become too expensive and that we can no longer afford them. There is a link between the fact that he is constantly reducing the government’s fiscal capacity and the fact that he is now imposing service cuts. In essence, our economic growth is constant, and our institutions reflect what is best about ourselves. These institutions are now at risk because of the negligence, the incompetence of the Conservatives.

Just for fun, let us take a look at this statistic: the small number of chartered banks recorded profits of $33 billion this year. It is a virtual monopoly, an oligopoly. There is no need to be self-congratulatory and proudly remark that they are extraordinary. There are only a few banks in Canada. They have a monopoly and can charge whatever interest rate they want. It is nonsense to say that they are private market wizards. Thirty-three billion dollars in profit equates to $1,000 for every man, woman and child in Canada. Every year, the chartered banks make $1,000 in profit for every Canadian man, woman and child. That does not make sense.

There are institutions that define who we are as a nation.

We are so proud that the NDP, under Tommy Douglas, was responsible for bringing free, universal, public, portable and accessible medical care to our country. We do not think any Canadian family should ever have to choose between having a sick child seen by a doctor and being able to put groceries on the table. I honestly believe there are more things we have in common as individuals than the partisanship on the other side would have us believe. I honestly believe the vast majority of the people who sit across from me in the government benches agree that it is a good thing we do not have an American-style system, that it is a good thing, as Canadians, we take care of each other.

At the beginning I said that is why it was so important to look at the gulf that separated the words of the Conservatives and their actions. In June 2011, shortly after we formed the official opposition, these were a couple of last questions that Jack Layton asked. He asked two very specific questions of the Prime Minister.

First he asked, “Are you going to cut health care?” The answer was categorical. It is in Hansard and is easy to check, “We will not be reducing transfers to health care”. In December of the same year, barely a few months later, during a meeting with his provincial counterparts, the Minister of Finance, over lunch, and it was not even an agenda item, sometime between his coffee and his apple pie, looked over the table and said that he would be removing $36 billion from the projected and budgeted health care transfers from the feds to the provinces. There was no negotiation, no debate, no discussion, straight diktat from the federal government to the provinces. That is the way of the Conservatives. That is not our way.

The other question that Jack Layton asked the Prime Minister in June had to do with pensions. This is what I would call in French, une demi-vérité ou plutôt un demi-mensonge, because it is an art that Conservatives master. It is around, for example, the F-35s. The Minister of National Defence will often go to his microphone and say that not one penny has been spent on F-35 acquisitions—

Shelly Glover: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry to interrupt because I hate to rise on points of order, but I would allow the Leader of the Opposition to withdraw his comment about a half-lie. That is unparliamentary language. He knows it. He ought to abide by the rules, and I would ask you, Mr. Speaker, to enforce the rules by asking him to withdraw that unparliamentary comment.

The Acting Speaker (Barry Devolin): I believe all hon. members are familiar with the rules of this place and I would ask all hon. members to avoid unparliamentary language. The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

Thomas Mulcair: Mr. Speaker, all we have to do is listen to the Minister of National Defence when he stands on the F-35s. The Conservatives have spent $700 million to date and then he stands and says that not one penny has been spent on the F-35 acquisition. Of course he cannot acquire it. It does not exist yet. There is only a paper machier version that he uses for press conferences. The Conservatives have started to master that type of thing.

When the Prime Minister responded to Jack Layton’s specific question “Are you going to cut pensions”?, his hand on his heart, the Prime Minister said, “We will not be cutting pensions”. When Conservatives added two more years and took $13,000 out of the pockets of five million old security recipients, what did the Minister of Finance have the temerity to stand and say? He said that the government said it would not touch pensions, but it never said it would not touch old age security. What a rim shot.

This is the Conservative way, as if the amount of money seniors get to live on after retirement was not generically the pension for the average Canadian, that is unbelievable hypocrisy. There are certain measures of the civilization that we live in, of the society that we live in. In a country as rich as Canada, it is unthinkable that we have hundreds of thousands of elderly who have worked all their lives living in poverty. We will change that.

How is it possible that after 900 pages of budget bills we are not doing anything to deal with situations like the third world conditions in places like Attawapiskat? How is it possible in a country as rich as Canada that we still allow those third world conditions to continue—

Shelly Glover: Mr. Speaker, once again, I really am someone who hates to rise on points of order, but I need to understand something very clearly. The official opposition leader said the word “demi-mensonge”. Is it the ruling of the Speaker that is in fact unparliamentary? If it is, the member must withdraw or apologize. I do not want to interrupt again, but he needs to do the right thing if that is the ruling of the Chair.

The Acting Speaker (Barry Devolin): I appreciate the point of order from the parliamentary secretary. As I said a few minutes ago, I would urge all hon. members to avoid unparliamentary language. There is a practice in the House that there are certain words that are clearly avoided and are not acceptable. There are others that are in a grey area in terms of whether they are direct or indirect. In my view, in this case, the hon. Leader of the Opposition did not cross that line, but he was in that area. Therefore, I would ask all hon. members to obey the rules as they are commonly practised in this place. The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

Thomas Mulcair: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank you for your ruling in this regard and remind you that this complaint is coming from the person who, earlier, referred us to page 282 of the budget, saying that it had to do with the Navigable Waters Protection Act when such is not the case.

The changes in the budget change the rules of the game for teachers and engineers. What we are trying to say about employment insurance is that, from now on, people will have to look for jobs located up to an hour away from where they live, otherwise they will lose their benefits. This is an unbelievable threat to industries that depend on seasonal workers.

For example, what are people in Atlantic Canada who work in the fishery supposed to do if the minister is saying that, from now on, they have to move? Someone cannot train to be a fisher in five hours, five days or even five months. It takes several seasons to train someone to work on a boat. The government is already draining these communities of their lifeblood because of our artificially high dollar. All our export industries are suffering terribly. This is being felt in Atlantic Canada in particular.

Governing also means understanding the country, the regional differences and the different regional needs. Rather than making allowances for that, the Conservatives are applying the same remedy everywhere. They are attacking regions that are sorely in need of a helping hand. Instead of that help, these regions are getting hit hard. That is what the Conservatives are doing.

What is more, the Conservatives are creating an economy where salaries will be much lower. There is less pressure with regard to all working conditions because of a series of measures that are being implemented. It is not by chance that, for the first time in Canada’s history, the middle class has seen a clear drop in income, and this occurred in tandem with the signing of NAFTA.

Over the past 25 years, the middle class has seen its real net income drop. This is the first time this has happened. In other words, the richest 20% of Canadians are experiencing a rise in income while the other 80% of Canadians—it has been measured and proven—are experiencing a drop in income. These are the results of the neo-conservative policies of the current government and its Liberal predecessors, who aggressively pursued the same goals for 25 years.

This is putting downward pressure on incomes and on employment conditions. As though that were not enough, these agreements are creating a race to the bottom: temporary foreign workers who used to come and work in a few sectors, such as produce farms, will now be in several employment categories. The government trumpets the fact that we can pay them a lot less than Canadians. People are working hard in mines and many other sectors and what is the result? One simply has to go visit the steelworkers in Prince George, British Columbia, to see what kind of pressure they are under. It is hard work. They work hard their entire lives. They fought hard for fair wages only to be told that the Conservatives are going to force them to work two years longer before they can retire. Then, as though these workers did not have enough pressure on them, the Conservatives want to bring in workers from other countries and pay them lower wages, and this adds even more downward pressure. That is the Canada the Conservatives dream of, where workers are subjected to working conditions from the early 1900s. That is their vision.

The NDP wants to build a fair Canada. We hear appalling speeches, like the one we heard earlier, suggesting that our dream is heresy. A country as rich as Canada is capable of paying for decent working conditions, and that is part of what an NDP government will bring.

That is the path that the Conservatives are paving for us.

Do not forget that Bill C-38, the Conservatives’ budget bill in the spring, repealed the Fair Wages and Hours of Labour Act. That is their vision.

They are not attacking one particular group or sector. Their goal is to drive down wages for all Canadians, a total lack of an economic plan. The government is not just failing workers but businesses that create jobs too. Canada faces a perfect storm of economic challenges. We have 500,000 lost manufacturing jobs, a $50 billion trade deficit, household debt at an all-time high, the worst American downturn since the Great Depression, and we are still in the middle of a eurozone crisis.

When we talk to Conservatives about the interest that we have in using our experience, our expertise and our capability to help in Europe, we get the usual talking points of “You want us to write a big cheque to Europe”. What imbecility. As if the idea of using our experience and our expertise to help avoid a crisis that will invariably negatively affect us is something wrong.

Yet those are the talking points that come out of the PMO because they make stuff up. That is all they have. They have nothing else. They make up pages in the budget and they make up plans for the NDP that have never existed, other than the ones that were the same ones they had. They make stuff up all day long because they cannot defend what they are actually doing. That is what we are talking about now, what is actually in here, what they are actually doing and the negative effect it is having on Canadian workers across the country.

What an irony Bill C-45 is. The jobs and growth act does not contain a plan to generate either. Budget 2012 kills more jobs than it creates. It contains no strategy for the 1.4 million out-of-work Canadians. The so-called centrepiece of the economic plan is the small business tax credit, which members can applaud because the NDP supports a tax credit. It was part of our 2011 platform. This one does not go far enough. It is worth a maximum of $1,000 and it lasts just one year. At best, it may be enough to help companies hire one full-time employee. It will not even make a dent in our lagging job numbers.

The truth is that the government continues its failed policy of lavish corporate tax cuts, even as companies ship jobs overseas. For example, one company demanded a 50% pay cut and shut its doors after receiving $5 million from the Conservatives. It was called Electro-Motive Diesel in London. I got to visit the workers on the picket line in the middle of the winter. It was an extraordinary experience because just a few months earlier a beaming Prime Minister had been out there with a $5 million cheque, because this was evidence of the success of his plan for jobs in Canada.

As soon as that election campaign was over, there was a little meeting. The bosses sat down and said, “We have a deal for you. You accept a 50% pay cut or we move your jobs south of the border”. The company closed, the jobs have been moved, it kept the $5 million and there are no longer any jobs in Canada. That is the Conservative plan.

Thirty years ago a young worker could work his or her way up a company ladder. Now workers have many different jobs in a lifetime. The incentive to invest in workers is being lost. A large workforce is no longer a sign of pride. A couple of generations ago, someone who was running a big company would be very proud and take great pride in stating the numbers in his workforce. Now the great pride is saying how many of those jobs were shipped to another country. That is the change. We have to get back to a feeling in Canada that it is a social responsibility to be proud to be creating good-paying jobs.

Why do we keep doing what the Conservatives do, investing in companies like Electro-Motive Diesel that do not invest in our workforce? This is the type of short-sightedness that we see all over Bill C-45.

For example, under the changes to the scientific research and experimental development tax credit, the program would be cut. The $500 million a year that it costs would be eliminated, but it would also reduce government support for business research and development at a time when businesses need to increase innovation to compete.

To put it another way, if we cannot get the Conservatives to do the right thing because it is the right thing, let us try to get them to do the right thing because it is actually good for the economy. The only way to increase wealth in our society is to increase knowledge, and this is the dumbing down of Canadian business. That is the Conservative legacy. It is going to hit manufacturing particularly hard at a time when they need a little oxygen to keep going.

We need tailored incentives that better serve businesses and our economy as a whole. There are a couple of good examples that can be looked at in Canada where long-term vision and incentive by the government has produced a great result.

For example, take a look at the TV and film industry in Toronto. There used to be a time when it was only New York and Hollywood. Now, Toronto is in there competing with them every step of the way, but it required a partnership between government, business and labour. Those tax incentives were there for decades and they worked their way through the system and are producing the great result of bringing in billions of dollars a year and lots of high-quality jobs. However, it required government involvement every step of the way. The Conservatives simply do not believe in that.

We should be building the next success story now. Instead, we are getting less for workers, less for Canadians and less for our economy. That is what the Conservatives are about, less for everyone.

In the business environment there should be the creation of a climate for growth. We have to ensure predictability. However, look at the catastrophe this week with the sale of a gas company. The government cannot even give the criteria on which the decision was based and it released its decision at 11:57 p.m. on a Friday.

The Conservatives cannot explain the decision. They have to hide it. Then when they come back into the House, they go back to their talking points and keep referring to the statute, but the decision uses criteria that are not in the statute. How is a foreign company looking to invest in Canada supposed to make an intelligent decision? We saw the effect on the stock market immediately on Monday. Stocks were getting pummelled. People do not know. This is a government that boasts about being close to business, but its actual decisions are hurting business.

This lack of predictability is something that we would change. We would clarify the rules for foreign investment. We would welcome investments and trade as long as it was reciprocal, responsible and fair.

What concerns us the most is that since 2009, there has been a strong trend towards eviscerating anything that has to do with environmental protection in Canada. In 2009, the government even did away with one of the first steps, which was the Navigable Waters Protection Act.

I remember that the Minister of Foreign Affairs called it the greatest job killer. We were confused. At the time, we told ourselves that it was not possible to pit the environment against the economy, since the past 50 years have shown us that they go hand in hand, because both of these things must progress together.

I remember being speechless in parliamentary committee, when I saw the Liberal Party vote with the Conservatives for the first time to start dismantling the Navigable Waters Protection Act. That was in 2009. That continued in 2010 and 2011, based on what we are seeing here. They are getting rid of the protections that are so important for everyone.

But the businesses themselves are the ones that want some predictability in all of this. They do not want to end up being told that they did not fulfill their obligations.

Instead of enforcing federal environmental protection legislation, such as the Fisheries Act, the Species at Risk Act, the Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994, and so on, what are they doing? They are gutting these laws and changing them completely.

This is interesting, because we know that there are procedures, processes and ways of doing things, particularly in the oil sands, where the federal government no longer enforces these laws. The lack of enforcement will cause more degradation of ecosystems.

This government claims to be a law and order government. Normally, when a company violates the law, we force it to change its practices. But the Conservatives instead change the law to bring it in line with those practices.

I will give a concrete example having to do with the Navigable Waters Protection Act, which we were talking about earlier. In Canada, 37 rivers are considered to be heritage rivers. Of these 37 rivers, 27 will no longer be protected.

Now, 27 of Canada’s 37 designated heritage rivers will no longer be protected. They include the Bloodvein River, in Manitoba and Ontario; the Cowichan River, British Columbia; the Clearwater River, Saskatchewan and Alberta; the Main River, Newfoundland and Labrador; the Margaree River, in Nova Scotia; the South Nahanni River, Northwest Territories; the Tatshenshini River, Yukon; the Mattawa River, Ontario; and the Upper Restigouche River, New Brunswick.

Mr. Speaker, I actually enjoy responding to the peanut gallery when they heckle. The question was, “Is it navigable?” Duh, yes. It is a definition in the law. No amount of rebranding will take away from the fact that the Navigable Waters Protection Act was meant to ensure sustainable development for future generations.

I mentioned the decision of Judge Lamer in the Oldman River case in my opening remarks. Let me read one section:

“The Minister of Transport, in his capacity of decision maker under the Navigable Waters Protection Act must thus consider the environmental impact of the dam on such areas of federal jurisdiction as navigable waters, fisheries, Indians and Indian lands.”

After that, the Conservatives stood up and said that law had nothing to do with the environment. Shame. It is Orwellian. The Conservatives made their website disappear after a question was asked by my colleague from Halifax yesterday. There were 29 references to the environment, and the Conservatives made them disappear. They want to make the environment disappear.

We are going to stand up and protect the environment, for now and for future generations. We are going to continue to fight the Conservatives’ omnibus budget bills.

There are two different aspects that are being discussed today. When we look at the contents of what they are proposing, we get the results we are looking at here. We are hurting people. We are taking away programs. We are taking away protections that have been given in Canada for generations.

Before we even look at those, there is an aspect that all Canadians have to consider in what we are going through today, which is the continuation of what the Conservatives started in the spring. This type of omnibus budget bill is affecting dozens and dozens of different laws. We have fallen into the American trap of avoiding our parliamentary debate. Our system is different from the American budget system, where they tack on and tack on.

We remember the Prime Minister, and it was not something we have said, admitting that he never watches Canadian television and he never watches the Canadian news. He gets all his news from the Fox network. I guess it is not surprising that he thinks the American system applies here and he has simply given instructions to his House leader and his other officers to start following the American system of using a budget bill as sort of a catch-all, where they can throw in all the stuff they want to change. That is what we have here, again.

That is an undermining of our parliamentary democracy. Those are our institutions. The Conservatives are not only taking away things like medicare, free universal public medical care, and putting it in danger, the cuts I referred to earlier, the $36 billion that they announced without discussion or debate will lead inexorably to a two-tier system. That is just a fancy way of saying that poor people are going to have trouble seeing a doctor and rich people will have access because they will be able to pay for it.

That is not the Canadian system. That is not the Canadian way. We will stand up and fight that.

Yes, at every step, we will stand up because for the first time in a very long time we are beginning to have hope. In the next campaign, there will be two opposing visions for our country. There is the Conservative vision, which slashes the social safety net and takes out $10 billion every year. That is the figure they tried to hide. The cat was out of the bag yesterday.

I heard the member for Saint Boniface say earlier that they held lengthy budget briefings. Let us talk about those briefings. I was the finance critic for the official opposition for five budgets before I became the leader of the official opposition. Never before had I seen what I saw last spring. We often see the same people from year to year. They are usually in their offices. There is very little reason for them to be here, except for the few times they attend parliamentary committee hearings.

Officials are there to provide us with information. When I saw not only the budget cuts, but also the two-year increase in the retirement age, I went to see them to ask for a single figure that could be readily obtained. I asked them what adding two years of work would mean and how much money the government would be taking out of seniors’ pockets.

This is what they told me, and I quote:

“I can’t give you that information.”

I know a half-truth when I hear it. So I answered:

Are you telling me you can’t give me that information because you don’t have it, or are you telling me you have that information but you can’t give it to me?

And the response, which was worthy of George Orwell, was:

“I can’t give you that information.”

That is the Conservatives.

Yesterday the Auditor General confirmed the overall number. The Minister of Finance was asked that question at a press conference right in front of the House of Commons a few months ago. On our side, we had estimated that it was somewhere between $10 billion and $12 billion. We were not far off. They estimated it at $10 billion. The minister refused to give the number. He replied with his usual smile, as though he were saying “I do not give a damn”, that he had heard approximate numbers. Imagine that, a Minister of Finance who says such things. I can say one thing to my colleagues and to any seniors watching us at home: they can be sure that the two-year increase in the retirement age will be cancelled by an NDP government; we will put the retirement age back to 65.

We will stand up, unlike the members opposite who, day after day, have to parrot the lines written by the Prime Minister’s Office. They sometimes have one minute a day in their poor little parliamentary lives to finally talk about their ridings and about real issues, and what do they do? They act like parrots. They are puppets, marionettes. They stand up and say exactly what the Prime Minister’s Office tells them to say.

We can be reasonable. We can stand up and keep the real objectives in mind. We tell Canadians that when it comes to pensions, the integrity of our Parliament and our free, public health care system, we are proud to stand up for them. We will stand up for the environment, because we in the NDP know that we deserve better than what the Conservatives have been offering us for the past six years.

Since the Conservatives came to power, they have found many opportunities to invent titles for bills that say exactly the opposite of the bill’s contents. Last week, I had the opportunity to say that if, by chance, they actually used the most recent incarnation of the mammoth budget bill to do what they promised to do in the election campaign, which was create jobs, we would vote in favour of the bill.

In the comments I made yesterday, I clearly explained that we could have a good discussion about some of the elements in this bill if we could split it. It could be done by splitting the bill and having different committees study it.

We believe that some things can and must be done. I gave an example earlier when I spoke about tax credits for creating jobs. That is how we could go about it.

We will not let the Conservatives fool us. We have become too accustomed to their empty promises. We are telling them outright that if they split the bill and divide it into coherent parts that can be easily studied, they will find that our party is willing to co-operate.

We shall see what they end up doing. We will test the Conservatives’ ability to be true to their word. In the case of the Navigable Waters Protection Act, we saw that they said one thing and what was in the documents was altogether different.

Here are some of the elements that could be split off from the bill.

Here are some of the elements of Bill C-45 that could be split off from the bill and studied separately and properly in a parliamentary committee. It has already been shown it is possible because we did it last week.

By the way, I open a little parenthesis to say that there are 450,000 public servants in Canada who are very happy that the NDP actually read what the Liberals were putting in, because such is the Liberal incompetence that they were about to give one-two-three agreement to the enactment of a law that would have taken MPs’ and senators’ pensions and dealt with them on the same footing as the pensions of 450,000 civil servants.

The NDP stood up, demanded a change, and was able to get it done right.

It was so pathetic to see the House leader for the Liberals standing in the hallway, stuttering away, saying, “It was a spelling mistake. It was a typographical error.” That is one of his classics. Four hundred and fifty-thousand people are a typographical error for the Liberals.

Here are some of the elements that could be split off from the bill.

The gutting of the Canada Environmental Assessment Act should be before the environment committee. The gutting of the Navigable Waters Protection Act should be before the environment and transportation committee. The elimination of the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission should, of course, go to the health committee. Cutting the SR and ED tax credits should be before the industry committee. Changes to the Fisheries Act should go to fisheries and oceans committee. Changes to the Indian Act should go to aboriginal affairs and northern development committee. Changes to the new Bridge to Strengthen Trade Act should go before the transportation committee. Eliminating the grain act tribunal should go before the agriculture committee, and pension reforms should go before the human resources, skills and social development committee.

Therefore, I would like to seek unanimous consent, and I am sure it is going to be given, to move the following motion.

That notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, that Bill C-45, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures be amended by removing the following clauses: (a) clauses 9, 27, 28 and 62 to 64 related to the scientific research and experimental development tax credit; (b) clauses 173 to 178 related to the Fisheries Act; (c) clauses 179 to 184 related to the proposed bridge to strengthen trade act; (d) clauses 206 to 209 related to the Indian Act; (e) clauses 210 to 218 related to the Judges Act; (f) clauses 264 to 268 related to the Customs Act; (g) clauses 269 to 298 related to the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act; (i) clauses 316 to 350 related to the Navigable Waters Protection Act; (j) clauses 351 to 410 related to the Canada Grains Act; (k) clauses 425 to 432 related to the Canada Environmental Assessment Act; and (l) clauses 464 to 514 related to pension reforms (1725)

That the clauses mentioned in section (a) of this motion do compose Bill C-47; that Bill C-47 be deemed read a first time and be printed; that the order for second reading of the said bill provide for the referral to the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology.

That the clauses mentioned in section (b) of this motion do compose Bill C-48; that Bill C-48 be deemed read a first time and be printed; that the order for second reading of the said bill provide for the referral to the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.

That the clauses mentioned in section (c) of this motion do compose Bill C-49; that Bill C-49 be deemed read a first time and be printed; that the order for second reading of the said bill provide for the referral to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

That the clauses mentioned in section (d) of this motion do compose Bill C-50; that Bill C-50 be deemed read a first time and be printed; that the order for second reading of the said bill provide for the referral to the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development.

That the clauses mentioned in section (e) of this motion do compose Bill C-51; that Bill C-51 be deemed read a first time and be printed; that the order for second reading of the said bill provide for the referral to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

That the clauses mentioned in section (f) of this motion do compose Bill C-52; that Bill C-52 be deemed read a first time and be printed; that the order for second reading of the said bill provide for the referral to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

The Acting Speaker (Barry Devolin): Order, please. Could I interrupt the hon. Leader of the Opposition and ask that he slow down. The translators are having a difficult time. He will have the opportunity to complete reading his motion. The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

Thomas Mulcair: That the clauses mentioned in section (g) of this motion do compose Bill C-53; that Bill C-53 be deemed read a first time and be printed; that the order for second reading of the said bill provide for the referral to the Standing Committee on Health;

That the clauses mentioned in section (h) of this motion do compose Bill C-54; that Bill C-54 be deemed read a first time and be printed; that the order for second reading of the said bill provide for the referral to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration;

That the clauses mentioned in section (i) and (k) of this motion do compose Bill C-55; that Bill C-55 be deemed read a first time and be printed; that the order for second reading of the said bill provide for the referral to the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development;

That the clauses mentioned in section (j) of this motion do compose Bill C-56; that Bill C-56 be deemed read a first time and be printed; that the order for second reading of the said bill provide for the referral to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food; and

That the clauses mentioned in section (l) of this motion do compose Bill C-57; that Bill C-57 be deemed read a first time and be printed; that the order for second reading of the said bill provide for the referral to the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities;

That Bill C-45 retain the status on the order paper that it had prior to the adoption of this order; that Bill C-45 be reprinted as amended; and that the law clerk and parliamentary counsel be authorized to make any technical changes or corrections as may be necessary to give effect to this motion.

Mr. Speaker, we are proposing this motion to better study individually in the appropriate parliamentary committees this omnibus budget bill, which touches on dozens of different pieces of legislation. We find this motion to be in the interests of this parliamentary institution that has been so hard pressed by a Conservative majority that thinks it can run roughshod over the rights of Parliament.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/it-is-a-question-of-credibility-for-the-government/feed/7Equality before the lawhttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/equality-before-the-law/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/equality-before-the-law/#commentsTue, 09 Oct 2012 17:26:07 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=301485Irwin Cotler criticizes the Harper government’s decision to cut prison chaplains.However, the government’s disregard for the principles of religious freedom and equality before the law — values enshrined in …

However, the government’s disregard for the principles of religious freedom and equality before the law — values enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms — is as inexplicable as it is unacceptable. Simply put, this move will have an adverse effect on the rehabilitation and reintegration of Canadian inmates and will infringe Charter rights, while at the same time contradicting the government’s own agenda of religious freedom.

With respect to the rehabilitation of offenders, it is clear that access to services and guidance of a religious character is essential. Regrettably, the government has demonstrated, yet again, that it is primarily concerned with the punitive aspects of the criminal-justice system, ignoring that those who are incarcerated will eventually be released and need assistance in their integration back into society.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/equality-before-the-law/feed/6The complicated case of Omar Khadrhttp://www.macleans.ca/general/the-complicated-case-of-omar-khadr/
http://www.macleans.ca/general/the-complicated-case-of-omar-khadr/#commentsTue, 09 Oct 2012 15:03:01 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=299632Bringing Khadr home was the right thing, but let's not rush the process of integration

Canadian citizen, convicted terrorist and diplomatic conundrum Omar Khadr is back home. Flown in on an American military transport early Saturday morning, Khadr’s first appearance in his birth country since 2001 seemed to come rather suddenly, particularly given the protracted political and legal debates over his capture, incarceration and repatriation. What brought things to a head so quickly? And was the right decision made?

It seems Maclean’s played a key role in the timing of Khadr’s return. Two weeks ago Senior Writer Michael Friscolanti unveiled important new information on this polarizing file when he obtained the transcript of a seven-hour interview from 2010 between Khadr and forensic psychiatrist Michael Welner at the U.S. military prison in Guantánamo Bay. Friscolanti’s cover story (“The secret Khadr file,” National, Oct. 1) revealed for the first time the contents of this much-discussed but never-seen video footage.

News of our exclusive story immediately put the heat on long-standing diplomatic discussions to bring Khadr home. According to the Toronto Star, our access to the secret U.S. military document was considered a serious “breach of trust” by the Obama White House and forced Canada’s hand. CTV National News similarly identified our cover story as the accelerant in convincing Public Safety Minister Vic Toews to agree to accept Khadr, something Ottawa said it would “favourably consider” more than two years ago.

Regardless of our role in pushing Ottawa to make a decision, however, the more significant aspect of Friscolanti’s work comes in providing readers with an uncensored look at Khadr’s mental state, his feelings toward Canada and his commitment to terrorism. For the first time, Canadians are able to judge Khadr by his own words.

What emerges from the transcript is a complicated and often-contradictory individual. Khadr maintains a maddening sense of obfuscation about his actions on July 27, 2002, when, at age 15 at an al-Qaeda compound in Afghanistan, he threw the hand grenade that killed U.S. military medic Sgt. Christopher Speer. “Nobody trusts me, and they don’t trust me because of something I didn’t do or I was made to do,” he said. So which is it? Certainly he seems convinced nothing is his fault. “I’ve been a victim from the beginning,” he claims. Of even greater concern, Khadr continues to defend his father, known terrorist and al-Qaeda financier Ahmed Said Khadr.

On the other hand, Khadr talks convincingly of his desire to return to Canada. “It is a country I can call home,” he says, choosing it over other places he’d lived, such as Afghanistan or Pakistan. He claims to renounce war and terrorism and appears sensitive to his lack of human contact while in detention. He also used his address in court during sentencing to apologize to Sgt. Speer’s family.

Despite certain ambiguities of character, Canada was right to repatriate Khadr. He was the last of the Guantánamo detainees who had citizenship in a Western nation. Australian al-Qaeda member David Hicks, for example, was captured in Afghanistan in 2001 and promptly sent back home after his conviction in 2007. Further, whatever you may think of Khadr—and his fanatical family—Guantánamo Bay is equally abhorrent. Khadr was still a teenager, locked away for two years, before he was even able to speak to a lawyer. And he has always been a Canadian citizen, with all rights therein. Both duty and tradition argue in favour of bringing Khadr to Canada.

With the matter of his homecoming now resolved, the bigger issue lies in ensuring that Khadr integrates successfully into Canadian life. Judging from his interview with Welner, as well as the activities and statements of his family while he’s been gone, this will be no easy task.

Khadr’s sentence runs until 2018 but he will be eligible for parole as early as this coming May. Toews has gone to pains to remind everyone this decision will be made by an independent parole board, as it should be. And yet the minister has publicly observed “the serious nature of the crimes that he has committed” and his fear Khadr’s time at Guantánamo Bay may have radicalized him further. “If parole is granted,” Toews explained in a statement announcing his return, it should be with “the imposition of robust conditions of supervision.”

Considering the secret video footage alongside the rest of the evidence, such caution seems entirely reasonable. Omar Khadr will eventually become a full, and hopefully productive and peaceful, member of Canadian society. But that doesn’t mean it’s in society’s best interest to rush the process. It has taken 10 years to bring him home. It could take a few more years to make sure he fits in properly.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/general/the-complicated-case-of-omar-khadr/feed/19Picking and choosing religionshttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/picking-and-choosing-religions/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/picking-and-choosing-religions/#commentsFri, 05 Oct 2012 13:00:49 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=300684Prison inmates will now only be served by Christian chaplains.Inmates of other faiths, such as Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jews, will be expected to turn to Christian prison chaplains …

Inmates of other faiths, such as Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jews, will be expected to turn to Christian prison chaplains for religious counsel and guidance, according to the office of Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, who is also responsible for Canada’s penitentiaries. Toews made headlines in September when he ordered the cancellation of a tender issued for a Wiccan priest for federal prisons in B.C.

Toews said he wasn’t convinced part-time chaplains from other religions were an appropriate use of taxpayer money and that he would review the policy. In an email to CBC News, Toews’ office says that as a result of the review, the part-time non-Christian chaplains will be let go and the remaining full-time Christian chaplains in prisons will now provide interfaith services and counselling to all inmates. “The minister strongly supports the freedom of religion for all Canadians, including prisoners,” the email states. “However, the government … is not in the business of picking and choosing which religions will be given preferential status through government funding. The minister has concluded … [Christian] chaplains employed by Corrections Canada must provide services to inmates of all faiths.”

The CBC says the prison chaplain program costs $6.4 million and it’s not clear how much of that will be saved as a result of this change.